Caroline Fellows
Editor-in-Chief
High school seniors are a little stressed right now.
With Nov. 1, and Nov. 15, deadlines having already passed and Dec. 1, deadline approaching, seniors have been pretty busy for the past few months applying to colleges.
According to The American Freshmen report series conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute, 35 percent of first-time freshmen applied to seven or more colleges during the fall 2016 admission season.
Senior Keillyn Johnson filled out 10-15 applications and sent information like test scores and the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) to five to six colleges. These colleges include Mizzou, Washington University and Missouri S&T, and she also plans to apply to Harvard University and Georgetown.
Johnson has had to write multiple essays and knows she will write more as she progresses to more scholarship applications.
“I recognize that they (colleges) think that they need to know who I am and that it’s easier for them to decide on who to admit if they don’t just have numbers, but I don’t see how me writing an essay for them is going to tell them anything about me because the quality of my essay is not only due to my own effort, but also how good of teachers I have,” Johnson said.
Senior Grace Kaul applied to 11 colleges and said she has written about 14 essays, but has reused or slightly modified some of them to pertain to each college. In contrast to Johnson, she believes that some colleges should ask for essays.
“They want to see if you’ll put in the effort because I think certain schools want kids that are willing to go that extra mile… I think that asking essays is a good way to distinguish people, because (colleges) are right. If you don’t really want to go there and if you’re not determined you’re not going to do the essays,” Kaul said.
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