September 4th

After spending two weeks at Indiana University, I have really come a long way since my senior year in high school, when I spent much of my fall filling out college essays and applications and, much more likely, stressing about their outcome.
Now that I have been fully removed from the whole experience, I thought it may be valuable to take the time to write something specifically directed at the senior class right now. Basically, I have been in your shoes, and there are five basic things that I think you should know.
1. Set your relationship with your parents and siblings up for success early. Start talking about how you are going to communicate and how they can talk to you without pissing you off. In my first two weeks, I have been able to talk to my family just enough without annoying them by taking up there time or avoiding them, and also enough that I feel like they are involved in my life, but not to an extreme degree.
2. Drop the importance of the GPA. If I asked much of the Sophomore class here what they had gotten as a high school GPA, I bet they would barely remember. It is just a number. Don’t let it define you. It is so easy to be owned by that number and let it take over who you are as a person, but there is more valuable to extra-curricular that bring you inner peace or satisfaction, rather than spend all of your time hitting the books. Also, side note, don’t think that having a higher GPA than someone means that someone is “smarter” or “better”. That is extremely shallow and arrogant, or, on the flip side, demoralizing and self-depreciating.
3. No degree of stressing will impact your ability to get into a given school. You can spend hours stressing once the application is gone, or you can let it go, and simply wait until you hear a response. I did not attend a single class at the University of Wisconsin, but they did teach me one of the best lessons I have ever received and that is patience. You might as well enjoy the time you have, because soon a new form of stress will happen: picking which of the schools that you were accepted to will you actually attend?
4. Segueing well from the last point, DO NOT ATTEND A SCHOOL THAT DOES NOT WANT YOU. You may have grand goals for yourself and have your mind set on a school, but if a school isn’t willing to accept you with open arms and maybe a little money added in, then don’t go. I spent far too much of my time pushing a school that didn’t want me to take me, even though I had a school waiting in the ranks that was practically begging me to come. That being said, go to the places that you feel good about and that make you feel good. Don’t go if you have cried over them.
5. At the bottom line, which school you choose as a general rule DOES NOT matter. Clearly if you want to go into business, you should go to a school with a good business school (Kelley School of Business at IU is awesome). If you want to be a musician, go to a good music school (Jacobs School of Music anyone?). All of that being said, I go to a Big Ten school, and I would venture the guess that a school day looks the same all over, with professors who are among the elite in their field, who care about what they are teaching. If you are debating between two well-respected school, it doesn’t really matter where you pick, just that you enjoy the time you spend there.
I hope that this has been helpful or enlightening to someone. I wish I had had someone who had the guts to tell me “Senior year was stressful because you let it be, and you need to enjoy it”. Maybe they were there but I didn’t hear them clearly enough. So take this to heart.