Life of a high school senior full of tough decisions

As senior year rolls around the corner, many students face the tough decision of where to spend the next four years of their lives. And boy is it a hard one. This decision decides the rest of your life. It decides what sports team you’re going to root for, what friends you’re going to make, and even what career you will pursue. This decision is the biggest you will ever make.

OK, maybe that’s a little bit of an exaggeration but that’s honestly how it feels. Just the application process takes hours and hours. Most schools use the Common App website which allows students to submit their applications and send it to all the schools they want, but many schools have their own applications. And although the Common App seems like a great tool to make applying easier, it’s not. The amount of time spent filling in information is too much. Common App now knows pretty much everything about me, possibly even more than I know.

Along with the application, a personal essay is almost always necessary. The personal essay is often considered one of the most important parts of an application and usually involves a struggle or accomplishment that the individual has overcome. Reading the prompts makes me question my whole life. What challenges have I overcome? What event helped me transition from childhood to adulthood? These are hard questions. They really only make me realize how little I have done with my life. How do I explain to colleges that watching Netflix all day is how I’ve spent the past five years of my life?

So after the application is done and submitted, you wait for months. Only to find out the results of the biggest decision of your life. You hope and pray that just maybe the college of your choice wants you as much as you want it. If you’re not accepted then what? Go to a school that you don’t really want to?

And if you do get into that special college that you’ve always wanted to go to, congratulations! Prepare yourself for the hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt that you’ll spend the rest of your life paying back!

So is it worth it?

Absolutely. The memories and experiences gained from college are incomparable to anything else. While it seems that I write this with little to no excitement for college, that is not the truth. Although choosing a college is extremely tough and extremely stressful, that is part of life and that is part of the college experience. And from what I’ve heard, it’s all worth it and I couldn’t be more excited.

Thomas Carloss is a senior at Whitefish High School.