The Athlete:

Summer* chose to apply Early Decision to Oberlin College and hit send on the Common Application last week.

“It is not at all a Division I track school, or a sports-oriented school whatsoever, but they have been reaching toward me, and I really like the school, so I think that’s it,” Summer said.

Although her father subtly tells her that he wants her to attend a large Division 1 school, Summer still wants to go to a smaller liberal arts school.

“He doesn’t blatantly show his disapproval, but it’s like, he still wants me to go to a Division I school,” Summer said. “He is always like, ‘have you ever thought of so and so school, or this Division I school?’”

Regardless of how her father feels, Summer is very excited about applying to Oberlin and hearing their admission’s decision in mid-December.

“Honestly, I’ll be fine wherever I go as long as the people are warm and welcoming,” Summer said.

The hardest part of the application for Summer to complete was the supplement section.

“I struggled a lot with all of the supplements because finding a topic to write about is such a struggle for me,” Summer said, “But I mean, I did it.”

The All-Around:

Walter* submitted his four early action applications to Indiana University, the University of Michigan, Tulane University and the University of Wisconsin. He still is going to apply regular decision to Tufts University, Emory University and University of Southern California.

“I am pretty open-minded, but of course I really do like Michigan,” Walter said. “It’s a nice school, and a couple others for my regular decision list that I am pretty excited about.”

Walter does not have a first choice, and felt that he was not ready to apply Early Decision to any school because he could not commit.

Walter is thinking about playing football in college but says it would only be likely for him to do so if he went to a Division III school, like Tufts.

“I am not much taller or bigger, so I can’t really play Division I,” Walter said. “I am not going to get recruited or anything like that.”

Walter also found the hardest part of the application process to be deciding what topic to write about in his supplements.

“There are so many options to write about, and you have to pick which one best conveys you,” Walter said. “They don’t know your picture, they don’t know what you like, all they know is just these words on a page, so you get to try to show what best shows you, in the most effective way.”

Although the varsity football team lost in the first round of the playoffs, Walter was very happy with the season and really enjoyed being a senior on the team.

“The majority of the players on the varsity team are seniors, and it’s a fun experience because most of us have been playing together since seventh grade, so it is fun having that,” Walter said.

The Artist:

Blair* has submitted 11 of the 13 applications to the colleges that she is interested in.

“It was extremely hard to apply to 13 different schools, and write all of their individual supplements,” Blair said.

Overall, Blair has had a hectic senior year, and has found this year much more challenging than her junior year. After taking no Advanced Placement courses last year, she is now taking two this year, which she believes is a “big leap.”

Along with adding more difficult courses to her schedule, Blair was also in the school’s production of “Company.”

Blair found Rutgers University’s application the most difficult, but overall thought the college process was not as bad as she had imagined.

“At the beginning, the whole thing looked like, ‘how am I going to do this?’,” Blair said. “But now that I am through it, I realized that it wasn’t actually that bad.”

After submitting her applications, Blair is now practicing her college audition monologues, which must consist of one Shakespeare play and one contemporary play. The monologues from each category must be contrasting; one must be a comedy and the other a tragedy. In total, Blair is preparing nine different monologues.

“You have to find a really unique monologue because you don’t want to perform the same monologue that everybody else does,” Blair said.

Blair so far has prepared Shakespeare monologues from ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ ‘Twelfth Night,’ ‘Two Gentlemen in Verona,’ and ‘Richard III.’

Blair will begin auditioning in January.

The Brain:

Seth* has found his senior year to be a lot more challenging than his junior year, yet he says that he is doing much better in school. With five Advanced Placement courses on his plate, he says that he is very stressed.

Seth submitted two applications early. He applied Early Decision to Duke University and Early Action to the University of Michigan. Duke is Seth’s first choice because of his wonderful campus visit experience.

“It has a great campus, a great student atmosphere and great academics,” Seth said.

Seth plans to also apply to schools regular decision but has not finalized his choices. He hopes to work with his dean to decide within the next couple of weeks.

“In the next two weeks I have to do my UCs and start working on regular decision applications,” Seth said.

Seth thought the hardest part of the application was trying to get his essay and supplements done just the way that he wanted them.

“Expressing what I wanted to say about myself was the most difficult part for me,” Seth said.

After submitting his early applications, Seth felt very relieved.

“I was very excited to not have to think about it anymore,” Seth said.

*Names have been changed