To Grade 12 students, the process of applying for a college or university can be a complex and intimidating process. Keeping track of application deadlines, filling out the forms and meeting the academic requirements of each program requires time management and organizational skills.
Here are a few practical tips for students:
Organize Your Environment
While a good portion of the application process for colleges and universities has become digitalized, there’s still hard copy documents and paperwork involved that can easily amass during the application process: forms, school records, recommendation letters, etc. It’s important to figure out a way to physically organize all the materials you have, whether it’s a file on your desk or on your computer.
Make a Calendar
Deadlines come up quickly. If you don’t already use a calendar, you should get one instead of trying to keep track of all the important dates in your head. The calendar should be easily accessible, whether that means pinning a paper calendar to the wall or keeping it on your phone.
A calendar might include:
- Application deadlines
- Financial aid deadlines
- Personal/internal deadlines (if you plan to get certain things done before an external deadline)
Your calendar should help you manage your time, not just track due dates and deadlines. Look at your calendar regularly to see if you’re working at a good pace.
Identify Your Goals
It helps to figure out what your ultimate goals are as you begin the application process. Your main goal could be to simply get accepted to at least one school or perhaps to a specific school or program. Goals vary from person to person, but generally, yours should answer the question of, “Why am I doing all this?”
Your main goal might seem far-off, but by figuring out what it is, you can then set smaller and more manageable goals to help you reach your final target. If your goal is to get accepted to your first-choice school, a smaller goal would be to complete the application for that school in a timely manner. Even smaller still, other goals could be to gather all the documents you need for the application and figure out what you still need to acquire.
Of course, the first step to getting accepted to a college or university is finishing high school. If you want to take steps toward meeting that goal, contact us today to get started at BrightMinds!