Seniors’ focus moves to college

Seniors+focus+moves+to+college

Eve Gershon, Staff Writer

The beginning of the year brings in a new wave of seniors, and with those seniors come college-application anxiety and an ever-worsening case of senioritis.

While many seniors are still far from thinking about their college applications, others, like senior Susanna Cassisa, have already started applying to places like the University of Mississippi, where applications opened in July.

“I’m applying to Ole Miss and the Honors College and the Croft Institute,” Cassisa said.

Senior Annabel Terry has been working away as well to ensure she gets into her college of choice by starting to work on the common app and taking ACT prep outside of school.

For some, this whole experience can be quite overwhelming. Fortunately, Sarah Breithaupt, senior counselor for OHS, can often be found in her office or just an e-mail away ready to help students with whatever they need.

“Some students need a little more help with the application; some students need more help with scholarships, so just kind of whatever a student needs from me—I make myself available for that,” Breithaupt said.

Unfortunately for those trying to apply in July, there was a two-week period in the summer when counselors were on vacation, so it was difficult to have transcripts sent out. Some students had to wait longer than expected between requesting a transcript and having a college receive it.

“It was kind of a long waiting period of just not knowing what was going on with my transcript,” Cassisa said.  

Luckily for Cassisa, the late-coming transcript did not affect her too much, and she still got her application in with plenty of time to spare, but for those more apt to put things off, they may want to get a head start on applying, just in case.

While applying for college and getting ready to move on from high school, many seniors are beginning to find themselves contracting the symptoms of senioritis, and the school year has only just begun.

“It’s really hard to get work done, and there’s just no motivation,” Terry said.

They find it harder to get their work done and find themselves more than ready to get out of high school, but while most are ready for high school to end, some are anxious about the future beyond graduation.

“I’m kind of nervous about the whole college thing because I don’t know where I’m going yet, and that’s kind of scary,” Terry said.

Cassisa, on the other hand, is completely ready for it all.

“Once you hit senior year, you’ve been here so long that you’re ready for the new experience, and applying to college kind of makes it feel real, and you’re ready for it to get there,” Cassisa said.