As we approach fall months full of college admission and scholarship deadlines, some Manhattan High seniors are feeling the pressures of preparing for their post-high school endeavors. 

According to senior Hayden Holmberg, a significant portion of colleges have early action deadlines of Nov. 1. 

“[Seniors are] super stressed out about it, and no one will ever be happy until Nov. 1,” Holmberg said. “[Early action] means that they’ll consider you for scholarships in advance, and you tend to get better scholarships if you applied early.”

Holmberg got a jump start on the college admissions process, and is currently working on admissions essays and securing letters of recommendation.

“I started [preparing for applying] at least two months ago, but only in the last week or so have I really ramped up the pace of it,” Holmberg said. 

Like Holmberg, senior Jenna Keeley is working on early action deadlines, which she prefers because they are non-binding and don’t require full commitment like early decision admissions. 

“The most stressful part of the process for me, personally, has been trying to find time outside of class, homework, sports and all my extracurricular activities to write these essays, because they all require different prompts and at least a good amount of thought,” Keeley said. “You want to make sure that you’re presenting your best work, but also when you have so many essays to write for each school… it just gets really overwhelming.”

Keeley has found the MHS counselors’ spreadsheet of scholarship opportunities to be advantageous. However, she said that the lack of in-school time dedicated to college applications makes accomplishing everything difficult. 

“A lot of my close friends that I’ve talked to have expressed similar feelings of being overwhelmed at the amount of time it takes, and our lack of time to get it all done,” Keeley said. 

Senior Meredith Graves also has utilized the MHS counselors’ spreadsheet, which she believes is a valuable resource. 

Graves is currently in the process of writing essays and asking various teachers to review them because “they have greater insight into grammar and what the application should look like.” 

Graves looks forward to getting the essays off of her plate. 

“The most stressful [part of the admissions process] has definitely been writing the essays for college apps,” Graves said. “The essays are really difficult and it’s scary to have someone else edit them…but just being able to get them done and turned in is really relieving.”