Applying to College
Hello friends!
As many of you know, this time of year is a little stressful for seniors for a couple of reasons. Primarily, however, it’s because college application deadlines are right around the corner. (If you are a junior or younger, this article still might be of use to you for future reference.) In order to help you out if you’re lost in the process, the MinnDak board has put together a little step-by-step to applying to college!
#1.) Pick a list of colleges to apply to.
This step has a lot of mini-steps in the process, and keep in mind when reading that the process is unique to every person who goes through it, so if your process didn’t or doesn’t look like this, you’re totally fine!
Find what type of school you’d like to go to! Do some research and generally pick the type and size of the school you feel like you’d fit in at. (private or public, large or medium or small, liberal arts or religious, etc.)
Find where you’d like to go to school! Do you want to stay in-state or go out of state? If out of state, consider if you’d like to stay in the midwest or go to the coast, or maybe south? Whatever you’d prefer!
Find schools that fit your type criteria in the areas you’d like and make a list of them. (This is most likely going to be a LOT of schools, that’s ok!)
Start narrowing down. Do your research on each of the schools, look up things like specialties, general aid, studying abroad, diversity, club involvement, party scene, etc. Pick what you like and get rid of what you don’t!
#2.) Create a common app account. This is the website almost all colleges use for your application, (if they don’t you’ll do the same steps on that school’s website.) It seems scary, but it’s pretty simple.
Create your account! You can go to commonapp.org and click first-year student, then make your account. (TIP: Don’t use your school-issued email for this, you won’t have it the summer after graduation.)
Fill out your personal information. With a family member who can help you, fill out all of the not-so-fun questions about your family’s education, yourself, and all the legal business.
Activities! Below the question section, there is an activity section. Fill out all of the jobs, clubs, sports, activities you do, and don’t be afraid to brag about yourself!
The Essays. For the common app, you have to write one essay called a personal essay. This is 650 words and it’s essentially just a story about you! (TIP: Don’t talk politics or religion, you don’t know your reader.) For more info and tips you can visit masterclass.com’s personal essay tips! Just google it.
#3.) Supplemental Essays. Each school is a little different but some schools will have you write individual essays for them. You can find these once you add each of the schools you are applying to into your “my colleges” section. Create those, and then once you’re done you’re pretty much ready to hit submit :)
