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The College Process

Currently it is October when I'm writing this so I don't have everything done at this point in the game, but I most likely will have most of these done by the time I upload this.

The College Process

what do I mean by that? I mean the things that are needed (or at least recommend) for preparing for college. College in the United States. I don't know how it works in any other country.

First off, it's never too early to start thinking about college. You have to stay on top of your grades. You can't slack off because you think you can get your grades back up when you get closer to graduating high school. Colleges can still see your grades from previous years. You can't hide it from them. They'll show up on your transcript. If colleges see you failed a class or two your freshman year and they compare you to someone who was on the honor roll or even got C's. They're going to choose the person who got the better grades.

Also, start thinking about what you may want to major in or at least what you're interested in so you can start looking for schools that are good for the area you want to go into. For example, I'm going to be majoring in Health Sciences under the physician assistance track. I've known that since my sophomore year. My freshman year all I knew is that I wanted to go into a health related career. I started looking for the best colleges around Ohio (since in-state tuition is exponentially less than out of state tuition). Cleveland Clinic is currently ranked one of the best hospitals in the United States. They're actually ranked second. Cleveland State University is right by Cleveland Clinic and CSU makes all their students in a health related field internship at Cleveland Clinic.

That's pretty much all you need to do your freshman and sophomore year. Look into different colleges. Rank them in the order you would want to attend them in. Look into what kind of tests you need to take to get in, look at the test scores you'll need, look at tuition, look into housing options if it's farther away from where you live, look at class sizes, etc. Just research colleges.

At the end of your sophomore year/ the beginning of your junior year take the tests you'll need to get into college. From what I understand, if you live on the coasts or applying to colleges of the coast you'll need to take the SAT, if you live more toward the middle of the country or applying to schools in the middle of the country you'll need to take the ACT. I only took the ACT. Don't take the tests too many times though otherwise colleges will just see it as it took you that many tries to get that score. I only took it 3 times. If you take it much more than 4 times, colleges start to kind of doubt you. Besides, those tests are pretty damn expensive so unless you just got money to blow don't take it too many times.

Your junior year, start visiting the colleges that you think you want to attend. I don't think you can know if you really want to go there unless you see and experience the campus first hand. when I went to CSU the first time, I was mind blown. The campus is beautiful. It's not that big. I mean obviously it's bigger than the small ass town I live in. But for it being an urban university the average class size is 27 which isn't that much more than what's in my class sizes this year. I mean my class size ranges from 5-18. when you visit the campus you get a vibe from it and you kind of just know if it's right for you or not.

Your senior year, fill out applications. Most colleges open theirs open in August and some are even opening applications up to juniors. I filled my out almost as soon as they became available and I got into CSU within a week of applying. Like I handed in my transcript request to my guidance counselor and when CSU got in they accepted me within the hour. By the beginning of the next week I received my official acceptance letter in the mail along with some information about CSU and the next steps I need to take.

Also, your senior year you need to fill out FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid). It now opens in October as opposed to January. A lot of colleges will require you to fill it out to receive any merit scholarships. You may not get anything from it or you may get something from it. I don't know if I got anything from FAFSA yet because the offers come out in January. I did get my merit scholarship offer in the mail a few days ago and they're offering me a total of $20,000 over a period of 4 years. So I'm getting $5000 a year.

I need to take placement testing to see which English and Math classes I can skip over. So far based off my ACT scores they're letting me out of English 101 so I'm going straight to English 102. I might get to skip over that too based on what I get on the English placement and what my AP test scores are at the end of the year. In math, they're offering to let me skip straight to pre-calculus which I'm taking this year so when I take the math placement I might be able to skip over that too and go straight to calculus.

The fourth thing your senior year you need to do college wise is look at housing options if you're going to live on campus. College dorms are kind of known for being small shitty rooms that you share with 1-3 other people. But damn these dorms at CSU are some of the best things I've seen. I want to get into Euclid Commons so fucking bad. Each dorm has 3-4 private bedroom, 1.5 baths, a living room area, and a kitchenette. There's no community shower deal going on there. Every dorm has their own shower for you. And they offer amazing amenities like cable TV, high-speed internet, paid utilities, self-controlled heating and AC, fully furnished. They also have community features like 24 hour community desk, game room, shops like convenience stores and sandwich/snack shops, free on-site laundry facilities, study areas, computer labs, and always someone on staff to help you if you need it. Also, if you're going to live on campus you'll have to have a meal plan which is just a plan you buy that gives you so many meal swipes a week and/or a certain amount of money to spend each week.

I have other things I need to do like go to orientation and buying textbooks. But I'm pretty damn excited to be graduating this school year and being able to go take classes that I'm actually more interested in unlike the Agriculture classes my high school made us take. I also need to send in my final transcript too but obviously I need to graduate first.

If any of you have questions feel free to ask me. I'll try to help you the best I can.