Ninety-five percent of Blue Valley High school seniors are planning on attending a college or university Principal Bacon said. However, before attending, the seniors have to go through a thorough application for each individual school, each varying different questions and essays. Whether it is applying for a community college, in-state school or private school they all bring the same anxiety and stress to the soon to be freshmen in college.

“It’s difficult because no one teaches you how to do it,” said senior Delilah Hsu.

Hsu has decided to apply for mostly private schools and only one state school—Kansas State University. For her applications she has to write mainly one essay for each application, but there also basic information that has to be answered in the applications.

“Usually standardized test, teacher recommendations, counsel recommendations, transcripts are what most schools need,” Hsu said . “Some schools require essays that you have to write and then there is just general information that they need, such as classes that you are taking now and personal information.”

Hsu has been working on her applications for the universities five days a week, including her time during study hall. However, with all her time spent on applying for colleges she still does not feel prepared for what’s to come.

“I feel like, maybe I didn’t pay attention, but the school didn’t really show us the process of actually applying, they just gave us bits and pieces, like how to use naviance,” she said. “They never [really] showed us what naviance did or common application. Maybe they wanted us to figure it out by ourselves since we’re all supposedly young adults.”

Senior Connie Galindo would agree with her opinion.

“I think they didn’t prepare us well because I feel like they worked more on education, but nothing for college,” Galindo said. “I feel like you have to do it yourself or your parents have to help you.”

However, unlike Hsu, who is applying for more private schools, Galindo said she is focused more on community college.

“I was looking at KU just because I know everyone is going there, and I would know a lot of people and meet new people,” Galindo said. “I’m also looking at Johnson County Community College (JCCC)  because it’s just around the corner and it’s a lot cheaper.”

Galindo said she works on her application for JCCC two hours a day. But, although it might seem JCCC is lighter on the application process, it is still a very taxing time for Galindo, she said.

“It’s very stressful,” said Galindo.  “I do not appreciate the due dates, even though I had so much time to do [the application] during the summer.”

Whether it is applying for community college, in-state school or private school, both seniors would rate this stressful process an eight or above, ten being the most stressful.

“I would give it an eight because you have school to worry about, deadlines, and also scholarships are coming up,” Galindo said.“It’s a lot and I wish I did it over the summer.”

The stress comes from taking ACT/ SAT scores, writing essays and keeping track of deadlines said Galindo.

However, the deadlines for each application are different depending on the schools Delilah said.

“Most of them are due in January, early decisions are due in early November, and then there are some random schools that are due in June — University of Kansas, Missouri,” Delilah said.

But unlike Hsu, Galindo does not have to worry as much on application deadlines, but more on scholarships.

“I mean like for JCCC you only have to apply and I’m basically in because I’m already taking classes for it,” Galindo said.

Galindo and Hsu is looking forward for this process of applying for colleges and scholarships to be over. However, although they are not done with all their applications, they wish they could change their way of tackling this process — both would agree they would have started the process earlier.

“Well I’m not done, but I guess I would have definitely reread the essays to make sure they’re what I hoped the colleges want to read,” Hsu said. “Also I would have started the application process sooner.”