Written by Melanie Coretti and Ashley Baldwin |
Photos by Melanie Coretti and Ashley Baldwin |
The senior class of 2018 has committed to the schools they will be attending in the fall of 2018. After the long, stressful application process, the students are on a path to success. In the spring of the students’ junior year, students in this class started to ask for letters of recommendation from teachers. In the fall of students’ senior year, they applied to college. These were lengthy applications, which took several weeks.
Students consider many factors such as the tuition, the programs offered at each school, and the location of the school when deciding where to apply.
Senior Tony Coretti who will be attending the University of Rhode Island majoring in Mechanical Engineering this fall said, “It’s better to get all of your applications filled out early.” When asked what the hardest and easiest part of the application process was, he said, “Towards the end of junior year, I started looking at colleges and where I wanted to go. The hardest part of applying was the testing at the end of my junior year, and the easiest part was completing the common application and the fact I can send it out easily to all the colleges I was interested in.” Tony narrowed down his choices, “by the price, major and location of the college.” Tony also added some extra advice to the juniors that will soon be applying: “Extra advice I have for juniors is to not take naps, and apply to a maximum of six schools.”
Senior Lily Cummings who will be attending the University of New Haven majoring in Forensic Psychology this fall said, “I started thinking of what I wanted to major in my senior year.” In her opinion, “writing the college essay was the easiest because it was something that was more geared towards me as a person and not towards my academics.” And the hardest was, “the FAFSA, because you have to have both your parents tax information, income, and it was hard to collect.” Lily said that if she could do the application process over, she would, “definitely apply sooner.” Lily also had some advice for the current juniors: “Don’t stress too much or stress too little. Find a happy medium of worrying about it.”
Many colleges accept students’ SAT and ACT scores as a part of the student’s acceptance process. Seniors have taken these tests in the spring of their junior year as well as the summer into their senior year.
Senior Nick Caprio who is attending Sacred Heart University this fall said, “I narrowed down my top choices through academics, how close the school is to home, the size and which one I liked best when I toured it.”
Senior James Saturno who is going to University of Connecticut recommends that juniors, “apply to a lot of schools, and have a wide range.” James also made a comment about whether to take the SAT or ACT: “If you’re better at English and language, take ACT. It’s a composite of 4 sections, ¾ is English. But, f you’re better at math, take the SAT.”
Senior Carly Schmeidler who is also attending UConn this fall said, “I think that these tests aren’t the best judgment of intelligence because some people are better test takers than others…I like how colleges have supplemental essays, college essays, and that your GPA is also taken into account when accepting students.”