By Nathalie Levine, PHS correspondent
May 1 is a holiday for a lot of people, from Neopagans observing the ancient festival of Beltane to Marshallese celebrating their Constitution Day to people all around the world who honor labor on International Workers’ Day. This May 1, as every year, many Princeton High School students will be celebrating for another reason: the end of the college admissions and decision process.
Most United States schools require a reply and deposit by this date. Notifications of acceptance or rejection tend to be sent out in mid- to late March, leaving a month or so for students to make a decision.
As late as nine days before the deadline, many students had still not made a decision. These undecided seniors reviewed financial aid information, talked with friends and counselors, made pro-con lists, and attended admitted students days at the colleges they were considering.
Many of their peers, though, decided earlier in the month, if not earlier in the year. These students have had their plans set for at least a few weeks, and sometimes longer. Soon almost everyone in Princeton High School’s class of 2010 will be in their situation, having decided and now looking ahead.
Elisabeth Liu has known for several months where she will be going next year: Fordham University in New York City. “I fell in love with it from the moment I stepped on campus, so when I got in early action, I was of the lucky few to have an easy decision to make,” she said. Early action, an option offered by some colleges, lets students apply by November and hear back in December.
Early decision is a more common application option with the same timetable as early action, but one important difference: if acceptance, students are bound to attend the school. “I guess in a way I kind of decided… spur of the moment” to apply early decision, she said. Since she got in early, she didn’t have to prepare applications to any other schools. “I ended up having to do a lot less,” she said.
For students who apply to several colleges, the process can be more time-consuming. Many colleges in the U.S. accept the Common Application, a standardized application form that includes two essays. But even schools that take the Common App, as it is familiarly known, may require supplements containing more essays that are sometimes school-specific.
For Kristen Charters, who is planning to attend Syracuse University and study architecture, applications involved more than just essays. “I had to put together a portfolio for several of my schools,” she said. Making her decision was the hardest part, though. The architecture program she will enter at Syracuse is a five-year program, so she had to decide whether she was serious enough about architecture to go there instead of to another school’s less career-oriented four-year program.
Aaron Palmer has also chosen a specialized program of study. He plays the clarinet in PHS’s highest orchestra and band and will be going to the Boyer School of Music and Dance at Temple University. “Ever since I started thinking about going to college, I knew I wanted to attend a music school,” he said. “Music is my passion, and knowing that I’d be going to school to do what I love all the time seemed like the best choice for me.”
Like Charters, Palmer had to do more than most students in his applications. There were three parts to most of the applications: applying to the college or university, applying to its music school, and auditioning. When it came time to make a decision, “all of the clarinet faculty at Boyer play in the Philadelphia Orchestra, so I thought that would be my best choice,” he said.
Kelley Orcutt also has logical reasons for choosing her college. She will be going to Boston College to major in theater and communications. She described her decision as involving many factors: BC’s location in a city, its theater BA program, how easy it is to double major there, and its many opportunities for extracurricular music performance. “But what really made [Boston College] stand out is that it had all these artsy things, and school spirit for their sports teams,” she said. “I knew I would never get bored.”
While logical decision-making is common, so is heeding the advice that many people like to give seniors at this time of year: go with your gut. Carly Scheiner, who will be going to Penn State next year, did just that. “Somehow, I knew I’d end up there!” she said, even though she visited on a day when it was hailing. “My decision, although painstaking, was kind of my gut feeling from the beginning.”
Having made her decision a couple of weeks before the deadline, Scheiner spent the end of April looking for potential roommates. “I’m incredibly excited to move on to something new… I’m definitely ready to leave and start the new chapter in my life,” she said. Many students feel slightly more mixed about leaving Princeton High School and beginning this new chapter.
“[It’s] bittersweet,” said Orcutt. “It’s so hard to just leave everything behind and start over, knowing that even though you make promises of Skype dates to everyone that you are friends with, you will probably only stay in touch with a few people next year.” But she and Palmer have no sadness about leaving high school academics behind, saying that they can’t wait to be able to focus on what they are interested in.
Many students, having grown up in Princeton, a suburban, mostly safe environment, are a little nervous about leaving. “It’s a big world out there!” said Lin. “It’s a bit scary. But I feel excited since college is supposed to be the best years of your life.”
Charters summed up the way most students who have made their decisions now feel. “There are times when I don’t want to leave and there are times when I’m ready to leave and I just want my senior year to be over,” she said. “I feel ready to move on with my life… but at the same time I’m going to miss PHS and my family here. I’m excited [to go to college], though…I’m going to love it.”
