Last updated on January 17, 2023
By Samantha Wilson
Imagine this: It’s November 15th – the day early action applications are due for high school seniors. A student knows their applications are due and they’re down to the wire to submit their college applications. They make it through the school day just to receive a pile of homework to get through by the next morning. They have to find a way to complete their work and get through their college applications by the end of that day so they sacrifice sleep and work until the next morning because they ran out of time to get everything done in what would be deemed a “timely manner”.
What if I told you that was the reality for many high school seniors?
As a high school senior I’ve found that – even despite taking fewer classes than I ever have before – the work piles on nonstop. Even though I started working through the common app on August 1st (the day common app opened) I still found myself on a time crunch with to get all of my applications in on top of homework and after school activities.
Contrary to what some may believe, I wasn’t on this time crunch because I was disorganized. It was quite the opposite, actually. I (as well as many others) kept to a schedule to get all of my applications submitted on time, but it became difficult to manage this due to the amount of homework I was getting.
So what can we do? It’s not like teachers can simply stop assigning homework during this time – they are on a schedule too. By the time the spring rolls around teachers have to be wrapping up teaching the class materials and begin to prepare students for what final exams will entail. It seems many students want a lighter class load, but that isn’t realistic.
What is realistic and absolutely possible is delaying deadlines during this time – not for every student, but for the ones that have early deadlines. Accommodating to students needs can greatly benefit us and help to ensure that we reach our respective deadlines without worrying about too much schoolwork on top of college apps.
