🪩High School Advice To Make College Easier🪩

Hey there! I wanted to give some high school advice to make college easier & cheaper from a college student.

🪩I know this is a long post but I promise you won’t regret reading & taking this advice🪩

Before I go in-depth with my advice, let me give you my qualifications for giving said advice so you can trust it a bit more :)

I am going into my second semester as a freshman but… credit wise, I am one credit hour away from being a junior after only my second semester of college! Granted, I did a 16 credit fall semester and my spring semester is 18 credits. Which I know I’m crazy for when I’m a spring sport athlete. But… I am an accounting and finance double major and I’m on track to finish college with my bachelor’s and masters degrees in only 4 years. During the college application process, I applied to 30 schools and was accepted into all of them so I know & experienced that dreadful time. I did all of these things in high school which allowed me the opportunity to graduate earlier than normal when going for 3 degrees, go to school for free without debt, & feel like high school was worth something. Although high school was terrible for me, these are the things I was grateful for doing.

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First things first, TAKE YOUR FUTURE SERIOUSLY. When I mean serious, don’t do something that will risk you not moving forward with your life. School is about education and having a more well rounded education/pov of the world. High school sucks, it does but take your future serious, you cannot go back to the past to change things so give it everything you have. But don’t obsess over it, that is something I regret. I never truly lived in the moment in high school because I was ready to move on with my life which was the most prominent my senior year for multiple reasons. I wish I lived more in the moment and made more memories & took more pictures because we are only teenagers without heavy responsibilities once.

This advice helps a lot with the college application process & stuff. So onto my advice to my college easier & cheaper…

🪩MAKE A SEPARATE EMAIL🪩

You are probably saying wtf is this advice?!… but hear me out. When applying for college & scholarships, doing fasfa, and all that stressful stuff, you do not want it mixed with your personal email where you get spam messages & newsletter emails. I don’t know about you but I rarely check my personal emails because it’s full of emails from brands and random things I signed up for, you don’t want to lose important application details, application statuses, or anything that is important relating to college. So… make a whole new separate email and this is the email you will use for anything related to college.

🪩TAKE EVERY AP/DE YOU CAN🪩

AP & DE classes aren’t for everyone but trust me, if you can get through those, you can get through a college class. My AP Calc & AP Econ teachers said if we got through these classes (which were the hardest APs in my school), we would be fine in college. (My school called them AP classes but they were actually dual enrollment classes we took from a college.) These dual enrollment classes allowed me to be further ahead in my college curriculum than someone coming in with no college credits. It eliminated a ton of time that I would be taking stupid general electives and allowed for me to take my major classes earlier. Plus gen-ed’s suck and are a waste of time, trust me. So take those AP/DE credits in high school while they are cheaper than an actual college class.

🪩JOB SHADOW & RESUME BUILDERS🪩

Job Shadow!!!! If you know what you want to major in or have any career paths you want to pursue, make sure to job shadow someone in that position. You won’t know if it’s a good fit for you unless you experience it first hand. Ask questions to college students in the major, ask friends or family about their jobs. This personally helped me when I wanted to be a safety manager. I was going to go to college for this major because it was easy and my sister and dad work in the same industry. I didn’t realize it wasn’t a great fit for me until I job shadowed and experienced what i’d do on a daily basis first hand. So job shadow.

Now with the resume builder. Find internships during the summer, get a job, do community service, do extracurriculars. This will not only give you experience but allow you to get inspiration for your admissions papers and a ton of scholarships want a list of the things you did/do. I did a summer internship between my junior and senior year and during a scholarship interview, they directly asked me about it and wanted me to talk about it. These things will set you apart from others. If you would like some inspiration of things to do or would like to see my list, let me know. I can also elaborate on more things to do for a resume builder if you’d like.

Find & make opportunities, don’t wait for them. Nothing is going to be handed to in life, it’s better to learn and experience it now. Plus it makes everything you accomplish all that much better because you worked for it and took that opportunity!

🪩LOOK INTO COLLEGES W/ 1> INTERESTED MAJORS🪩

Look, I know you might think you have your whole life figured out, and if you do that’s great but most don’t. When looking into colleges, make sure they have more than one major you are interested in. You don’t want to be stuck in a major you don’t like and have to transfer due to that. Most times than not when you transfer, not all of your credits will transfer with you which means you may have to retake classes. That not only wastes your time but also your money.

🪩MAKE A LIST OF COLLEGES, APP STATUS, COLLEGEVINE🪩

One of the easiest ways to not be too stressed, especially when applying to a ton of schools, is to make a list. So make a list of every school you want to apply to. Use your phone’s notes app and make a table to put your application status. This will allow you to know which schools you’ve applied to, if you are still waiting to hear back from them, and if you were accepted, denied, or waitlisted. This will help you when you need to come to a decision. You can also use any app/website that offers spreadsheets but I found my notes app was most convenient.

Now onto CollegeVine. This is not sponsored or anything but I genuinely used this website and it helped me a ton when deciding what my safety, target, and reach schools would be before applying places. It also matched me to schools that were what I wanted like location, class size, and more. I applied to a lot more schools because of this website and some of the schools I never even thought of applying or thought I’d get in but CollegeVine gives you your percentage of how likely it is that you’ll be accepted.

🪩FEE WAIVERS🪩

College applications get expensive very very quickly with their fees just to apply, that doesn’t even mean that you’ll get in. They can get up in price to like $80-90 per school which adds up fast. I applied to 30 schools and paid $0 total for every application. Get your fee waivers wherever you can!

If your school got free lunches or you took the SAT for free, go on College Board and get your unlimited amount of fee waivers. This fee waiver will allow you to apply to any school for free. I was lucky enough to go to a school that allowed me to get these fee waiver but not many people knew about it. I would have never applied to so many colleges without it. If you apply early, some colleges actually give you a fee waiver or waive the fee completely. Find your fee waivers!!

🪩HAVE A BACKUP PLAN🪩

Yes, everyone says this but it is true. When looking at schools, always have a backup plan. If you want to go out of state, have a backup plan in case something falls through. Finances, family situations, being too far, those things can happen so always have a backup plan if your plan A falls through. Make the backup something you will enjoy.

For example, say you got accepted to Harvard and that’s your plan A. If plan A falls through for whatever reason, have a plan B. Plan B could be going to an in state school that you liked the best and could see being a good fit. I wanted to go out of state for school, I really did. I applied to every out of state school I wanted to go to and even got accepted by them all but at the end of the day, I chose plan B because it allowed be to go to school for free w/o loans. The thought of not being in debt outweighed my want to go out of state. I made my plan B something I would still enjoyed which has not made me completely regret my decision.

Always have a plan B

🪩COLLEGE FAIRS, CAMPUS TOURS, & SCHOLARSHIPS🪩

College fairs will open you up to more colleges and allow you to learn more about them before you decide to apply or tour there. Our college fairs were optional but I highly recommend you go to them and ask as many questions as you can about their programs, student life, and more.

Campus tours are also something I recommend highly. On Amazon Prime Video there’s a college tours series that I recommend you watch to virtually tour the schools. Virtual tours are very nice and majority of college have them on their website or on Youtube. I personally advise to watch a virtual tour then if you like what you see, visit in person if possible. In person tours allow you to see campus life, ask questions, and get a feel for what your life could be there.

Now for scholarships, APPLY TO AS MANY AS YOU CAN. Apply to the ones you qualify for and even ones you don’t. Prioritize the ones you qualify for first though. These scholarships will help with tuition costs, buying books, dorm essentials, and more. I stressed so much about scholarships from December to March of my senior year. I applied to a ton because at this point, I still hadn’t committed to a college and I was still wanting to go out of state which meant I needed that $$. So apply to as many as you can. I applied to every scholarship that my high school offered and I applied to ones that were state and national. There are plenty of websites and apps like ScholarshipOwl and MOS. I’m in college and still applying for scholarships, the stress never ends🥲

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Lastly, have fun in high school and live in the moment. You have a long time to live and learn about yourself and who you want to be, there’s no need to rush. Don’t compare your journey to others because we are all on different paths. High school wasn’t all that fun from my experience and I was ready to move on with my life but I can promise you, life after high school is a lot more fulfilling and fun. College truly isn’t for everyone but I hope these tips help because they helped me a ton!

If you have any questions or anything, feel free to comment or message :)

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