With the school year coming to an end soon, seniors may be feeling stressed about their futures with college. Seniors know the stressful process of applying to college, that it can weigh heavily on the minds of students.
Senior Ellie Penkzik is in the nursing program at Kent Career Technical Center (KCTC). Going to KCTC helped Penkszik attain a starting point for her career. Penkszik found an understanding more about how she aspires to treat others while in the nursing field.
“Because I’m in the nursing program, it helps a lot with how I want to treat people in healthcare,” Penkszik said.
When applying for college, Penkszik made sure to keep the circle small for the different schools she considered.
“I wanted to stick to my main focus of getting into my specific five colleges instead of worrying about ten colleges,” Penkszik said.
Sticking to her five favorites made the task of applying less stressful. Penkszik suggests that students should start to think about possible colleges during their sophomore year.
“I feel like they [students] should at least look at colleges they are interested in their sophomore year, and into their junior year, and apply to colleges I’d say at the beginning of senior year, as soon as possible,” Penkszik said.
Senior Maria Potrero advises students to think about college at the start of highschool.
“Time flies by really fast. It’s like ‘I have next year, I have next year,’ and then senior year comes and you’re just like ‘well now I don’t know what to do,’” Potrero said.
Potrero knew which colleges she may want to attend during her freshman year, which aided her in the decision through her high school experience.
“In the beginning it was a bit difficult, ’cause I had no idea how to apply or anything,” Potrero said.
Senior Katelyn Flickinger is planning on attending Grand Rapids Community College. Though it can be scary to visit colleges, it’s beneficial to get a better understanding of what the college is about.
“I think you should visit colleges to get the feel for it, just to know what it will be like,” Flickinger said.
Visiting colleges is a part of the fun experience of applying to schools. It may progress student planning as well.
“Planning for visits can help with just overall being responsible and remembering to do things,” Potrero said.
This being said, it’s important to not overthink or worry about college too much.
“Just relax, because it’s going to be stressful and it’s gonna take a lot of work, but in the end it’s really worth it,” Penkszik said.