College application season is in full swing, and so is the enormous amount of stress that comes with it. From writing supplemental essays to submitting the “right” test scores, thinking about the process alone is sometimes enough to make some high schoolers feel like they don’t stand a chance and are often left clueless.

     It’s no secret that most teenagers don’t even know what to do yet, and end up picking a major or college just for the prestige or because they think they’ll make a lot of money post-graduation. According to a survey done by the Hillside Atlanta Foundation, only around 45 percent of high school students feel ready for college and careers. This begs the question as to why students have to pick a college at 18 years old when they’re still finding out more about themselves and discovering who they really are.

     Of course, there’s many ways to work around this problem. Colleges have become increasingly flexible due to the pandemic and have held virtual tours, webinars, and meetings with regional advisors to help students find the right fit–but this doesn’t fix the detrimental mindset many students carry: trying to find a college that will accept them instead of finding a college they’ll accept.

     When a student builds a high school resume tailored to a specific vision or dream, they start to feel as if they can’t turn back on that if they discover they’re passionate about something else. This can also make them more vulnerable to the thought of failure–they can’t see themselves anywhere else other than their dream school even if there’s a better college out there that meets criteria they didn’t even know mattered to them.

    This is reflected in the number of students that drop out. In 2020, around 40% of undergraduate students dropped out, 30% being freshmen according to EducationData. EducationData also reports that some of the most common reasons undergraduates drop out include being “underprepared for the challenges of college studies, academic or structure wise” and enrolling in college “only to meet the expectations of others such as family, a spouse, and teachers”.

     Although many colleges are going test-optional and stress that their holistic admissions process won’t be impacted by whether a student chooses to submit test scores or not, many students still feel the need to submit a 1600 or 36 in order to even have a chance at their dream school. It shouldn’t have to be this way.

     The process of applying to colleges shouldn’t feel like having to meet expectation after expectation and deadline after deadline. It should be a time where students feel empowered and completely informed about the different steps they can take to shape their future into what they want–not what everyone else wants from them.