Staying on Top of College Deadlines
As the January 1st application deadline approaches for many universities, the application process is still in full swing for many high school students. Whether you applied early to any schools or have just started filling out applications, it's easy to feel completely overwhelmed by school work, college essays, and continuing activities you love in the process. Personally, a large source of anxiety and stress in relation to the college process is applying to many different schools. Staying organized and on top of various tasks can be incredibly challenging, especially when it just seems like there are so many things that need to get done. In many instances, deadlines can seem impossible to reach or just so intimidating that it impacts your work negatively. Even if you’ve never had a bullet journal or don’t write things down in a planner, visual planning and organization can be a super helpful tip to make applying to a ton of schools a bit easier.
With schoolwork, applications, projects and meetings online, it can feel like our computers are just huge conglomerates of jumbled dates, tasks, and essays that need to be written. In order to sort through tasks and manage my time, I like to get off my computer and organize things into a planner and a calendar. If you’re anything like me, it's easier to keep track of the tasks that need to get done when they’re all in one centralized location. If you do write things down in a calendar, it can be helpful to make a rough draft of your week. Look at where you know you have classes, and mark in any events or meetings that you know will take up your time. From there, it becomes a bit easier to plan out realistic and achievable goals on what “college work” you can get done that week. If you prefer to store your schedule online, there are a variety of really simple online calendars that work great for planning your week and finding the best time slots to focus on college. Personally, I really like Google Calendar since it has school assignments already listed, and it's very easy to make tasks for yourself. There are a variety of other great online calendars that are super easy to use and create your own time with: https://www.lifewire.com/free-online-calendars-1357935
When staying on top of the things I need to get done, I like to put in the times of my live classes into my calendar, so I know which time slots are not going to be available. If there's a particular stressful week of school, i.e. tests, quizzes, or projects due, try to make a light schedule for when you’re going to work on college essays, or work on a one that’s not as daunting (or emotionally taxing). Although planning out your week can seem overly scrupulous and sometimes even exhausting, knowing when you’re going to work on specific essays, how you’ll be feeling at that point in the day, and what else you’ll be concentrating on can set you up for success and give you a sense of authority over tasks.
With the January 1st deadline approaching, my planner looks more like a novel with dates, deadlines and schedules written jotted down in it. It’s super easy to lose track of these dates, especially if you have scholarship deadlines, personal essays due in a few weeks, and schoolwork on top of all of that. From someone with a terrible short term memory, writing things down and later putting them into an online calendar, reminder app, or written schedule is essential to making sure everything is getting done on time and the right way.
In accordance with keeping academic work and applications on whatever schedule you have for yourself, it's also important to keep track of your commitments and make sure you’re on track. Logging into a club zoom meeting, interview, or help session might take 5 seconds, but penciling them in (virtually or manually) will help you remember any preparation that's necessary before attending. If you have multiple events in some organizational tool, I find that separating by some way or another school, college, and extracurricular allotted time in different colors or sections helps keeping everything organized and succinct.
In this extremely stressful time for seniors and high school students alike, applying to a bunch of Regular Decision schools feels extremely pressuring and highly stressful. By planning and acknowledging the numerous tasks of day-to-day life with organization, you’ll definitely feel more in control of your time and energy.
