My College Application Experience

When I announced my decision to attend Clemson, I promised y'all that I would share a post detailing the whole college application experience. I wanted to wait until after May 1 because even though I had made my decision, I did hear back from a few schools after putting my deposit in and I wanted to wait until National Decision Day.

This post isn't going to be explaining why I didn't like some of the schools I looked at or anything of that nature but I wanted to document what the process was like for me for both looking back at this post in the future and for any other high school students looking ahead to the college application process.

I started my college search pretty early as I visited seven schools in North Carolina with my high school as a freshman. Even though I had no clue what I wanted in a college or anything really, I was able to get my feet wet in the college search and began to discover what I liked as well as what I didn't like in a college campus.

I toured so many schools throughout the entire college process and honestly, I didn't love some of them. Some I walked into the tour expecting I would love the school and wound up hating it while some that I thought I would hate, I wound up loving. Visiting is the best way to get a feel of a school because a college can sound amazing on paper but not feel like home in person. I know not everybody gets "the feeling" when they step on the campus they will call home but how you feel while you are at a particular school is important.

I visited Clemson for the first time January of junior year and I got "the feeling" the second we drove onto campus. But I also got "the feeling" at other campuses too. I envisioned myself going to several of the schools I applied to, which I don't think is a bad thing. I knew I could be at home wherever I chose to go and then I looked to other factors, which for me were the school's community and my major. I love how everyone at Clemson loves their Clemson Tigers and the education department at Clemson is amazing so my decision was pretty much made when I realized that.

I wound up applying to seven schools (Clemson, Furman, Elon, Wake Forest, High Point, UNC, and Ole Miss) and was accepted to 5 of them (Clemson, Furman, Elon, High Point, and Ole Miss). I was deferred from both Wake Forest and UNC, which I'm honestly okay with because I found that out after I put down my deposit at Clemson.

Seven schools is a lot but some of my friends and classmates applied to way more than that. I only applied to schools that I could see myself going to, which made my decision towards the end of the process easier.

The college application process definitely teaches you patience as there's a lot of waiting. The Common App opens on August 1 so I worked on my applications from then to around the end of October. I heard from two schools fairly early due to rolling admissions and then a scholarship but I still had some waiting for schools that let me know in December. I was deferred in January from UNC so it was more waiting to hear I got into Clemson (!!).

I visited Clemson in March after narrowing it down to my final two. I was actually able to visit both of those schools in the same day, which was so helpful in making the big decision. I always thought that I would have to make a big pro-con list to decide but I just knew that day I was going to go to Clemson, which was such a relief to have my decision made and I'm so excited to be a student at Clemson this fall #AllIn

I know this post is a bit longer and more personal than most of my posts but I hope you enjoyed reading as I loved writing this one!

If you're a senior, where are you going to college? Let me know in the comments!