By Joseph Nian
Just to clarify, in no way, shape, or form is this an excuse for anyone to slack off on their college essays. If your essays don’t end up that great, don’t blame it on this article.
Oh, college essays. They are the last and arguably the most important obstacle of your high school career, as they play the largest part in your college application alongside your academics and extracurricular activities. Consequently, stress creeps into the back of your mind every single time you hear about it, whether that’s during your freshman, sophomore, junior, or senior year. Heck, I still get stressed every time I hear about college essays, even though I’m done with them. Yes, stress is bound to get a hold on you when you’re writing your essays, and that’s perfectly fine. Managing that stress is what’s especially important in preventing any frustration or confusion during your college process.
First of all, I cannot emphasize enough just how important it is to start your essays early. If you thought the summer before senior year would be enough, you may be wrong. Now I say “may” because I know plenty of students who did their essays during the summer and turned out just fine. However, as someone who told themselves they would start during the summer, I only ended up writing one rough draft of an essay during the whole summer. If you’re anything like me and tend to procrastinate enough, you have to dedicate an allotted amount of time to college essays with someone to keep you in check. Unfortunately, I procrastinated on those things and ended up with one lackluster essay that I ended up scrapping anyway. Now, seeing all of this might be furthering your stress, but spreading your stress from now until your essays are due is significantly more than stressing the month (or even the week) before the essay deadlines. Trust me, as someone whose stress the month before the deadline was absolutely haywire to the point where they had a breakdown, it is better to get serious about your essays before crunch time truly sets in.
Second of all, take breaks! Did I mention that you should take breaks? It really is that important. Please do not deprive yourself of anything just because of the college essay stress, as it really just builds up on itself. Of course, do not deprive yourself of basic needs like food and water, but most importantly, REST! As seniors finalize their essays, they also have to juggle the stress of their workload from school at the same time. As a result, many sacrifice their sleep and rest to either write their essays or to finish up their homework. If you’re tired, please just go to sleep, especially if you plan on writing your essays — nothing much will come out of sleepy writing.