With early college deadlines approaching, DGS students and a counselor discuss their advice for managing essays, scholarships and stress. From organizing applications to financial aid, their strategies highlight the lessons that do not always make it into college counseling appointments or Common App guides.
According to U.S. News & World Report, students are encouraged to start their application process during the summer in order to manage all the tasks more efficiently and reduce stress. Breaking up the steps in order to make it more manageable, makes it so you do not have to rush through the process or hold back your creativity from reaching its full potential.
College and career counselor Dan Mustari discussed the importance of having a strong application. He believes it is more than just how you perform academically and that colleges also want to be able to see your character and your impact on the community.
“Being able to show leadership and some type of tangible evidence that you’ve made a real impact. In fact, it could be work, it could be an activity, it could be an internship. There’s lots of different ways to show it, but doing the extra stuff outside of just your grade in a way that’s made an impact on other people,” Mustari said.
For senior Will Jaeger, writing his college essay became a very meaningful part of his application journey. He viewed it as a way to reflect through his experiences and goals, not just writing an assignment.
“I definitely spent the most time writing my college essay because I really wanted to reflect on what I’ve been through as a person, and how that impacts the career I want to go into. I feel like for a college to see how motivated you are towards your field reflects a lot more than a random story,” Jaeger said.
Scholarships also played a huge role in his motivation. Jaeger also made sure to take advantage of scholarship opportunities and make his application stand out.
“It’s more of how much money they’ll give me, which kind of flips the narrative because if I only had to worry about getting in, my grades and activities kind of speak for themselves. If I’m trying to reflect myself better as a person to get some leadership scholarships or anything like that, get out more grants, then I have to put a lot more effort into the personality piece of the component,” Jaeger said.
U.S. News & World Report recommends that students look into financial aid sources and explore scholarships to help reduce costs. Mustari pointed out helpful tools that can help students discover more scholarship opportunities.
“There are local scholarships to start opening in the fall, and we will promote those in the college and career department in a number of different ways. There’s also websites like Happily—H, A, P, P, I, L, Y—that are a database of different scholarships where students can put in their information, relevant scholarships to them, their interest, their majors and all types of information about them,” Mustari said.
Senior Delaney Lamm also began her application process over the summer. She believes having an early start made a huge difference and helped keep her organized.
“Whenever I had time in the summer or I was just bored, I would start filling out, little by little, and then when it opened, I went over the entire Common App. Then, when school started, you know, it’s hard to balance both school and applying to college, so I would just schedule myself a little bit of time to go through a single school every single week. That’s how I didn’t get overwhelmed,” Lamm said.
Although Lamm still asked questions and got help from school, she felt as if she relied more on online resources and family than on school support. Her brothers, who had already gone through the process, helped her with many of the questions she had.
“If I’m going to be honest, I feel like I haven’t gotten that much help. I know that the school has given us a lot of resources, but I started the application process in the summer. 
So I mainly would search up questions if I had them, and I also relied on my brothers if I had any questions because they’ve already applied to college,” Lamm said.
Morgan Molsky, a current freshman at the University of Illinois and DGS graduate, recalled a strategy from her high school counselor that she found very helpful. This was able to help her create a well-rounded college list. Molsky chose schools that offered her major and if the programs had both a great academic and social environment.
“My guidance counselor, senior year, did this thing where it was two safety schools, two match schools and two reach schools. So based on that, I found two reach schools that I was interested in, which are the University of Florida and Florida State. My safety schools were the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the University of North Florida, and then my match schools were Purdue and U of I,” Molsky said.
This is the strategy Mustari has been encouraging students to adopt to create a list of colleges best suited to their needs.
“I would say start with a database like SchooLinks, where you can do a search based on where you want to be, the size of campus and all that. Just keep a very open mind at first and start with a really big list,” Mustari said.
Senior students have emphasized the importance of working on applications the summer before senior year to maximize their opportunities and keep themselves organized. Jaeger noted how you do not need to know right away what you want to do for your major; you still have time to figure that out.
“I think juniors don’t necessarily need a sense of what they want to do in life. I feel like that’s very open, but make sure you go to a college that is easily accessible to change your majors because a lot of the people I’ve talked to aren’t necessarily always set on doing what they want for the rest of their life, which is normal,” Jaeger said.
The college application process may seem overwhelming, but success all depends on your mindset, being organized and asking for help.
“Be organized and talk to people. Realize that you’re not in this alone. Talk to your family, talk to your counselor, talk to your teachers, talk to your friends, so that way the anxiety is out there and you don’t have to keep it all inside,” Mustari said.
Applying to college is not just about the numbers on a transcript. It is about expressing your true self and setting personal goals. Whether you are still researching majors or starting your essay, staying open-minded helps turn this process into an opportunity for growth and creativity.
