A Senior's View of the College Application Process
February 2004

Novi High School students are a few weeks into their second semester.  Seniors have less than five months left in their high school careers, and college application deadlines are flying by.  Counselors are reported missing, and later found under piles of college applications, while hundreds of gray-haired Novi seniors are finishing up their part of the application process.  Now it’s up to the colleges to decide.  So during this time of waiting, it leaves us with plenty of time to reflect on the past five months, and think… what the heck was that? 

The college application process is un-necessarily difficult, drawn-out, repetitive, boring and long.  Believe it or not, there are many high school seniors that were not completely sure what college they wanted to attend, or which colleges wanted them to attend, when they began this so called “process.”  So it’s reasonable that many students applied to more than one college. 

Most probably applied to two, some probably applied to five, and less applied to ten.  Not because they couldn’t think of ten colleges they might like to attend, but because applying to ten colleges means ten times more work.  And the worst part is, if you apply to ten colleges, 90% of that work is absolutely pointless in the long run.  This is why we see so many students settling for mediocrity, and only applying to a school they know will accept them, where they can be with their high school friends and live happily ever after… for four years. 

This is where the idea of the common or universal college application comes in to play; an idea that is actually in effect in some parts of the nation.  Fill out your general information (the same stuff you’ve filled out countless times before for e-mail accounts, jobs, taxes, credit cards, etc.), fill out your educational information, pick which colleges you’d like to send this information to, pay them your money, and you’re done. 

The only problem is that access to a universal application varies by state, and if you’re looking to go to school in a state like Michigan, you’re out of luck.  So it begs the question, if the Lone Star State can have one application for every public university in the state (applytexas.org), why can’t the rest of the nation do the same thing?  The counselors (who are each responsible for getting 100+ students into college every year) could do it too, seeing that their forms are even more repetitive than the student forms.  And teachers would no longer be forced to hand-write recommendations, or write more than one per student. 

All that’s left to do are those dreaded college essays.  The ones where the words “ideals” and “values” are all of the sudden antonyms, half of your life must be backspaced to fit the 600 word maximum, and sleep is lost over the ever-so intimidating phrase “your impact on society.”  Of course the pain of writing a college essay will never be eliminated, but it can easily be dulled.

Excluding the many off-the-wall essay prompts (What is your favorite word and why?), most college essays fall under three categories: 1) Brag about yourself,  2) Describe something that’s influenced you, and 3) Tell us why you’re good for this college.  All of which students would be more than happy to write, if they knew they only had to write them once (and just like that the pain is dulled).

One form, three essays, and any student could be a point and click away from applying to as many colleges as they would like.  The colleges would get more money, checking applications would be easier, and colleges might just end up with some more unique students out of the deal. 

Isn’t it strange that we’ve had internet for 10 years, and so little has been done to speed up this process?  It seems we’re still dwelling on the fact that college applications are online, which is great if you’re a fast typist who’s overly concerned with saving money on postage, but other than that, it’s really no use.  It’s time we put the World Wide Web to use, and create a universal college application, where every college-aspiring student can live happily ever after… forever.
 

(c) 2003 the Novi Information Network