Expert: Sarah Sanchez Date: 7/5/2000 Subject: colleges
Question I will be a senior when i return back to school, Sarah my questin to you is-I am totally foreign to the entire aplying to colleges, What do i do?
How do I apply to colleges, Should I start to look for scholarships? Thank you for taking the time for helping some one who is ignorant on this process. Thank You very much.
Answer First of all do not feel ignorant on the subject at all! The process of finding the perfect school and then getting accepted to it and then finding a way to pay for it is hard for everyone. Trust me I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go but it will all work out, after a lot of hard work that is! First off you need to make sure that you have taken your SATs and your ACT tests, because you have to have those done by October 31st (for a UC that is). Then go to your schools consoling office, and they should have the applications to all of the schools that you want to apply, or they will know how to get them. Also you could go to the website of the school and request an application that way you know now what kinds of things that they want to see and you don't have to wait to the last minute. A lot of schools want letters of recomendations, and it is always good to ask for those at least a month in advance to give the writers time to think of all the good things to say about you!
You definetly should start the scholarship look right now! Go online and there are lots of search engines that will give you scholarships suited to the information that you give them. Also your school counseling office will be very helpful with this too. Scholarships have all sorts of weird due dates so you need to find them now, so that you can write good essays for them and such.
Be prepared to pay about $40 for each application to a college that you send in and you don't get it back if you don't get in! Also know that you need to fill out a FAFSA (Federal Application for Student Assistance) (or something like that!) This is due March 2nd of next year and this will determine what kind of grants and stuff you get! This is usually forgotten by seniors in high school becuase you need to turn this in long before you find out if you were accepted to a school. Then after that you wait to find out the decision. If you apply to Berkeley be prepared for it to take awhile for them to answer, if you start getting replies from other schools and you hear nothing from Berkeley, don't worry. They are usually the last one to respond to their students, it is totally normal! Also know that you will always hear a response, they won't just not get back to you, they will either tell you yes or no! One thing I heard when I was going throught this process is that if you get a small envelope that is bad news, but if you get a big packet, that is good news, because it has all the information for you to start there. And also don't forget that May 1st is the deadline to turn in your letter of acceptance to the school which you choose to attend! I hope that this was helpful, and sorry it took me awhile to answer, I was on vacation! Keep me posted on how things go!
