Veronica Bordas with NSHSS Chair Claes Nobel on Scholar's Day in Washington, D.C.

Veronika Bordas
Claes Nobel Academic Scholarship Recipient
Harvard University

As an upperclassman in high school, it starts to dawn on you that within the next few years you have to make one of the biggest decisions you have had to make thus far. With regards to your near future, it will determine where you will be living for the next four years, as well as the kind of people you will meet. Long-term, it will be a step in your career, the advancement of your academic career, and the beginning of your professional career. I am, of course, referring to the college application and decision process.

This process is far from simple and can be fairly stressful, so my advice is to start early. At first this might just be casually browsing through colleges websites without really looking for anything in particular. Who knows--something may jump out as interesting, and it will be worthwhile to keep that school in mind for the future.

Even if you have plenty of time before you actually apply, it never hurts to be organized. Have one specific place where you keep everything regarding colleges so that when, months later, you want to find a certain pamphlet or flyer, at least you will know where to look. Starting late in my sophomore year, I started receiving all kinds of information from colleges all over the U.S. and even from some abroad. I had a crate that I put all of the papers into, so that they wouldn't be scattered around the house and also so that I wouldn't throw out something that I might later want. At the end of my senior year, I could throw out things without worrying.

Make sure you are keeping track of deadlines! There are many of them, and it really would be a shame not to be able to apply to a certain program because you did not make note of the date the paperwork was due. This applies not only to the applications that you submit, but also to testing. Try not to leave the SAT I to the last possible day that you can take it, in the fall of your senior year. For one, it's definitely to your advantage to take it many times, because colleges look at your highest scores, and you can mix and match scores for different sections from different test dates. Also, you will very likely need to take SAT II subject tests. These are only offered on SAT I test dates, but you cannot take both the SAT I and the SAT II on the same day (also, check which and how many SAT II's your schools prefer). It pays to do some research ahead of time to keep last-moment surprises to a minimum!

Even if you are a freshman, it's never too early to start a list of your activities and achievements. No matter what year you are in, it is good to sit down as soon as possible to put such a list together and add details to it as time passes. This list will be useful to glance over as you are preparing for a college interview or brainstorming for your application essay. Believe it or not, it even comes handy once you are in college, when you will need to make a resume for applications for summer internships or jobs! If you have a list to begin with, all you will need to do is reformat it.

Make sure you know the difference between early decision and early action when you apply, and know which one your target college has. If you apply early decision, then if the school offers you admission, you have to accept it. Early action just means you have applied early and will receive your decision around December, but you can apply to other schools at regular deadlines in the winter, wait for all the replies, and choose in April. If you decide to apply early somewhere, you will receive your decision sooner, which can take a lot of stress off of your shoulders come senior year spring. Yet if you apply somewhere early decision thinking the school is early action and get in . . . Be careful, and read through information twice.

Reading thoroughly also goes for your applications. There is the commonly quoted example of unintentionally sending in an essay to School A about why you want to go to School B; also, just make sure everything is filled out and organized. Since reading through the same papers can be very mind-numbing, it helps to have a few other people read through and check everything. More people will catch more typos.

And finally, good luck!