Stop wasting your life on College Confidential!

By Josh Yim -

For some students, spring is not the beautiful transition between winter and summer, but instead a dreadful season of worry, anxiety, and disappointment. For seniors around the globe, March is the time when college decisions are released, letting those hopeful scholars know where their futures lie. Stress bleeds out of every pore as students rush home to their mailboxes or quickly log onto their email accounts after school, looking for the latest update on their admissions status. Students looking for information also turn to internet forums, such as www.collegeconfidential.com, to cope with the stress of the college decision process.

Students will post on the forum asking other users to look at their profile and “chance” them, or judge their likeliness of admission to different colleges of their choice. They ask what extra-curriculars or how many AP classes they should take in order to get into big name schools such as the Universities of California or Ivy Leagues. But honestly, all this worrying is ridiculous and high unecessary.

In fact, many admissions officers tell students to ignore the advice given on these forums, saying that it is based too much on numbers and not enough on the individual candidate. I am inclined to agree with that idea. Most admissions officers are not looking at just your SAT scores and GPA, but also the life experiences that make you who you are. Unfortunately, many “A students” miss out on the fact that academics make up only half of the entire equation.

Staying up into all hours of the night will not make your chances of getting into your first choice school any greater. The moment you pressed the submit button and sent in your application, you gave up all influence in the admission process. It amazes me how many people are still worried all the way into March. It has been at least two months since the applications have been submitted. There are no more SATs for you to take, you can’t raise your sophomore and junior year grades any higher, and your extra-curricular activities are pretty much set.  No amount of worrying will change that. It gets especially annoying when people start whining about how nervous they are. Most of the time, it is the smart people who worry the most, and they actually have the least trouble getting into college.

Looking back now in April, and having been admitted to a variety of schools, I can say that all this worrying over the smallest details is pointless. After taking a good look at these forums, I am left with the impression that they actually do more harm than good. Going onto the internet to worry about getting into the college of your dreams is not going to help the process. Be happy that you have the opportunity to get a higher education.  Instead of taking years off of your life with stress, go outside and enjoy your life for once, because before you know it you’ll be right back in school for at least four more years.