Coming into my senior year, I assumed that the last few months of my first semester would be the worst. I figured that December would be horrible—the combination of cold weather, college applications, and finals seemed like the worst possible scenario to me. But no, I was very, very, wrong. In reality, the worst month of my senior year was not December (although it was pretty awful)—it was March.
Now, you may be wondering, why is March the worst month of senior year? Well, that’s because during March the majority of college decisions come out. And if you haven’t already been accepted into a college you truly would like to attend by that point, your time will be spent worrying over where exactly you will spend the next several years. At least, that’s what happened to me.
Personally, coming into March, I was hoping for an acceptance into one of the top 5 UCs: UC Irvine, UC Davis, UCSD, UCLA, or UCB. As someone who thrives in a warm environment, I yearned to stay in California, and truly dreaded the thought of having to go out-of-state for college. So, with my hopes resting on the UCs, I was filled with excitement and anxiety.
But, unfortunately for me, for the first couple of UC decisions (UC Davis and UC Irvine), I was waitlisted. And so, for the first two weeks of March, my time was spent catastrophizing over what colleges I would receive acceptances from; in my mind, if I couldn’t even get into Davis or Irvine, then it would be impossible for me to get into UCSD, UCLA, or UCB. Of course, this isn’t actually true, as all the UCs evaluate applicants separately and they all look for something different in their applicants. But regardless, even though logically I knew this, in my head all I could think was, “It’s over.”
Luckily, I was fortunate enough to receive acceptances into both UCSB and UCLA; however, even though I am overjoyed with my acceptances now, a couple of weeks ago, I was going through it. And so, even though March doesn’t have any horrible weather or big tests or college applications, because of the emotional stress it brings through college decisions, March remains the very worst month of senior year.