Beyond The Grades;
Navigating through the college process
As high school seniors prepare their college applications, college students, teachers,and counselors share their experiences and give advice.
photo: Marissa Kenrick
Marissa Kenrick
Editor in Chief
Jace Santacroce
Staff Writer
As summer wraps up and fall begins to set in, many seniors begin counting down the days to that dreaded college application deadline. The fall season for seniors is filled with both excitement and anxiety. Most students don’t even know where to start when it comes to their application, which only brings up their stress levels. Students fill the counselor's office year after year with the same questions; ‘Will i get admitted? Do I meet all the requirements? Am I good enough?’ Dearborn High School counselor Kassim Darwish said there are other factors outside of grades that impact whether or not a student receives admission to an institution. “The hardest part of the admission process is somebody who has a 3.9 or 3.8 could get in before someone who has a 4.1 or 4.2. It’s hard to explain why that person didn’t get in, as opposed to why that person got in,” said Darwish. “It (admissions) is done by a committee. Not one person makes that decision, they have a group of people. They look at all the applications, and they sit down and narrow them down. To the yes, the sure, and the not sure, and then they sit down and debate about it for a long time.”
Darwish also spoke about how when it comes to letters of recommendation, less is actually more.
“One of the biggest misconceptions students have about college applications is over submitting letters of recommendation to try and make themselves look better,” said Darwish. “Universities say they only want them to submit two because they don’t want to rummage through 10 different letters of recommendation.”
Another important part of the application - possibly the most important part - is the essays. The personal essay being the one people mess up most often.
Dearborn High School AP Language and Composition teacher Sara Sabbagh said that not editing your essay is one of the biggest mistakes students tend to make while writing a personal essay.
“Not editing-this is the easiest one (mistake) to fix. Grammarly, a trusted teacher, etc.
Watch your word count, maintain the same tense throughout, and do not overuse a thesaurus,” said Sabbagh. Dearborn High School 2024 graduate and current University of Michigan freshman, Brody Ryan, offered advice to seniors working on their essays.“Advice I would give is to do it slowly,” said Ryan. “An hour or two a day on essays will keep your ideas fresh and you will still finish the essay within a week.”Ryan also talks about his own personal essay, and the approach he took while writing it.“I approached each essay by writing a draft that includes all of my ideas on the topic, even if that meant it wasn’t coherent and went over the word count, then I would refine it many times until I felt it was ready,” said Ryan. “For my personal essay I chose to write about a condition I was born with and how I overcame it. I kept it true to myself by including anecdotes of events that I experienced when I was younger because of the condition.
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