Seniors reflect on college application workshop

By Hannah Cho,
BlueDevilHUB.com Editor–

For seniors, spending the first few months of the school year wisely is critical, especially as the college application due dates come closer and closer each day. As such, many seniors attended the college application workshop that took place on Wednesday during lunch.

At the workshop, counselors provided a general overview of the college application process and what seniors should have been working on for the past few weeks and what they should work on in the next few months.

“We met with our students last year, when they were juniors, so we have a good idea of where many of students are planning to apply,” counselor Kimberly Liu said. “The meeting should have been a jumping point for them to set up another meeting with their counselors to clarify things.”

The workshop was helpful to students in different ways.

For senior Erin Rairdan, the workshop was an opportunity for her to meet and communicate with her counselor.

“I don’t visit my counselor often. She doesn’t really know me and I don’t really know her, so I wanted to use [the workshop] as sort of a gateway to speak to her,” she said.

Others found the paperwork given out at the workshop very useful.

“There was this list of the exact due dates for all the things I needed to turn in,” senior Kenneth Wang said. “It was especially helpful because it had all the deadlines for each type of college—UC’s, SCU’s, community colleges.”

Senior Sean O’Hara used the workshop as a chance to clarify his confusion regarding the letter of recommendation and also to get feedback on his essays.

“No one likes being told where they went wrong [in the essay], but it’s a whole lot better having someone you’re close to tell you where you need to improve,” O’Hara said.

Liu understands the overwhelming work seniors have to go through, but she suggests that they don’t stress too much about the college application process.

“What I always tell students is, ‘you need to consider the college application process is just like another class on your schedule,’” Liu said. “You want to maintain rigor but you also don’t want to all of a sudden take 5 AP classes if that’s not you.”

Liu also offered some advice to juniors who will go through this process next year.

“[Taking exams] is a lot of what happens junior year—the SAT, subjects, AP exams,” Liu said. “I would also say that it’s pretty critical to do well junior year as far as academics goes, but don’t freak yourself out.”