by Sierra L
Students at Mountain Range High School and other schools within Colorado express their stress with the 2021 free college application days on October 20th-22nd. With college closely approaching for seniors at Mountain Range High School, free college application day is just a reminder of how close their high school experience is coming to an end.
“ I was honestly very overwhelmed with the amount of work applications take.” Expressed an anonymous senior at Mountain Range High School. She later expressed that “College is scary, and because of COVID we didn't get the full high school experience.” With Covid-19 starting in March of 2020, when the seniors were sophomores in high school. Multiple seniors conveyed their feeling of not feeling they are completely ready for high school to come to an end. One senior stated “ It doesn’t feel real we are already almost done. It's horrific how fast it went.” Another senior stated “I feel like our school has been very supportive in helping us with college applications but I think I procrastinated and it made the applications more stressful.”
Mountain Range students weren't the only students who felt this stress of the 2 days they had to complete as many Colorado university applications as possible. A survey taken in the Mountain Range community showed that the most common applications submitted were to University of Colorado Boulder, and Colorado State University. Some students had expressed if they had felt the 2 days was enough time to complete. A student athlete at Mountain Range stated, “With practice and the rest of my school work I had to pull an all-nighter to apply to all the schools I was considering.”
Though college prep has been a struggle for most seniors with the last two years being different for seniors, most students expressed their excitement for the next steps in their high school career when choosing a college. “I am excited to graduate, searching for colleges I like is hard but it is a part of the great high school experience.” Another stated, “It’s crazy it's almost over. I am excited to see what the future holds.” Then later went on to saying, “I have waited for this moment for a long time now that it’s here. I don't want high school to end, college applications are just a reminder that we are almost done.”