Hayley started coming to Study Hut her freshman year of high school. She came almost every day to work on all of her challenging classes with her tutors. From studying for insane math tests to acing AP English, Study Hut has always had Hayley’s back when it came to helping her get her achieve her best.
When it came time to start looking at colleges and filling out her college applications, Hayley knew exactly who she wanted to have help her along the way. Hayley worked on everything related to college with her tutor Laura. Laura had watched her grow through the years both academically and personally. She helped Hayley narrow down her list of schools to apply to so they were left with only the schools that met all of Hayley’s requirements. They sorted through safety schools, reaches, and Hayley’s top choice: San Diego State University.
Hayley and Laura spent a lot of time making sure that Hayley’s personal statement was perfect. Because they had worked together for so long, Hayley felt comfortable opening up to Laura about her ADD. Together they crafted a series of car analogies that related her experiences with ADD to her school work and other areas of her life. They brain stormed and remembered Hayley’s greatest academic accomplishments and personal triumphs for the other sections of her applications, and made sure not a single question was left unanswered. They patiently waited to hear back from schools. As acceptances rolled in Hayley kept checking for SDSU. They were delighted when they found out she was accepted!
No matter how prepared you are, or how much research you have done, the college application process is always stressful. It’s a big decision after all, and which college you go to will affect the next few years of your life! However, there are a few easy tricks we’ve learned during in all our college app sessions to help lower those stress levels!
1. Exercise
Sweating it out will help cure any college app jitters, or help you get past that writer’s block keeping you from finishing your personal statement for your dream school. Do some relaxing yoga or if that’s not your style, push yourself in an intense spin class. You’ll be so focused on trying to keep up, college apps won’t even cross your mind!
2. Treat Yourself
Grab a milkshake or one of your favorite snacks. There’s a ton of great food in the South Bay. It is a quick way to pick yourself up and mentally refresh yourself in the middle of apps.
3. Have Someone Else Read Over It
Having a teacher or tutor look over your application can be beneficial for a few reasons. They may catch any grammatical errors you may have overlooked. They can also help you remember an important academic achievement that you might have forgotten about that would be perfect for your college application.
4. Manage Your Time
Don’t try and save all your essays and applications until the day before they are due. Servers get overloaded, computers crash, and you won’t do your best work if you are trying to cram in three essays in three days. Work on it a little bit at a time over the course of a few weeks. You will write a better essay and keep yourself from having a melt down.
While applying for colleges and filling out college apps may be stressful, you should focus on how exciting it will be and all the opportunities you are going to have, no matter where you end up!
Since we are halfway through another school year, the end is in sight and for most seniors this is when Senioritis really begins.
Senioritis!! What is Senioritis you ask? Listen up and I will explain to you all about it!
Senioritis is when you stop doing your homework, stop going to class, staying in bed all day dressed in your pajamas and you find yourself looking at the clock every minute .Sound familiar? We’ve all been there. Welcome to the club.
Now… Whether it’s the beginning of your Senior year, the half way mark, or the very end… remember, Senior year can be one of the best years of your life, so don’t give up.
Here’s a list of ways to not get Senioritis!
1. Make sure to write down your homework and important assignments in your binder so that you won’t forget what your teachers have assigned.
2. Do your homework. I know it seems so close to graduation day but grades are still important and colleges will look at your final grades to determine if you are still accepted to their University.
3. Do something that motivates you. Exercise is a great way to get motivated. You can go to the gym, take a walk, sign up for a dance class… there are endless possibilities.
4. Keep up your routine. Making sure you stick to your routine will keep you on task.
5. Make time for fun. It is your senior year… make sure to balance fun with schoolwork. You don’t want to miss out on the fun activities at school or good times with your friends. Memories from high school and college with last a lifetime… so make sure to not take everything too seriously.
6. Get pumped for the most exciting next step… COLLEGE! Before you know it, high school will be over and you’ll be off to college. College is really important and your college application will be a reflection of your four years in high school. Your grades, the clubs and organizations you’re involved in, and the comments your teachers write in their teacher recommendations will all impact your college applications. Your senior year can be the best year of high school – but it’s also a crucial one, so make sure to be productive, get good grades, and make every moment count.
Most colleges are looking for particular students with particular sets of skills, but not all them. It is important to research what your top choices are looking for. Stanford is looking for different types of students than is Berkeley, for example. Many universities are eager to accept students that fit within a narrow range of strengths and weaknesses which means that often times, they want to see your strengths articulated into the major that you’ll be studying. If you are quite strong in a particular area, you will be showing your potential university that you are committed to that strength and show a particular passion in that field of study. At the end of the day, universities want to see dedication, diligence, and passion based on your strengths in high school. Choosing a major upon applying to a university is just one more way to “brand” yourself as a unique student with a real drive for the subject matter.
However, some statistics show that around 80% of college students change their majors, and on average, a college student will change their major THREE TIMES during the course of their college education. While this may be “normal” it is one of the main reasons college is taking students closer to five years to graduate. When we get to college each major has specific classes that we need to take, so if we have been studying Psychology for two years and switch to Marine Biology, we are going to have to take a whole new set of classes, rendering the majority of the classes we took for Psychology useless. While we may have enjoyed the classes we took, we are now two years behind in our Marine Biology coursework. So in order to get the most for our time and ourselves it is most efficient to pick something we will love to do and stick with it.
If you are not so lucky as to know what you want to study right when you get accepted, there are important strategies that can help us use our time efficiently and not waste priceless time on taking unnecessary classes. Many undecided students tend to study Psychology and Business, both very popular choices with a large range of opportunities in the future but they may not be what we really want to do. Here is one strategy that will work well:
There are two main types of classes in college, General Education and Major Specific classes. General Education classes are usually entry level and have few or no prerequisite classes (classes you need to take before you can take your major class). While Major Specific classes usually build on themselves so they take more investment time wise. If we do end up going into a major we are unsure about, it is best use of our time to take mostly General Education classes, and perhaps one major class our first semester. This way we get our General Education classes (the classes we have to take no matter what) out of the way while still getting a little taste of how we like the major.
If we pay close attention to the classes, we may find there are some major classes that overlap with General Education, these would be best to start your Freshman year with because they give us a taste of the major while also chipping away at the General Education classes we have to take anyway.
But again the number one thing you should consider before you choose your major is “What do I LOVE to do” because in the end that is what will make you happiest, and when you are happiest you will perform your best. Good Luck future of America!
