It All Starts Now

The Common App is available. The Florida universities applications have been posted. Summer might as well be over.

Looming ahead are the countless college applications and supplements, essay after essay, last minute SAT and ACT cram sessions, a heavy first semester course load, soccer practices and football games, Key Club meetings, band practice, volunteer hours at the hospital and to top it all off, a part time job.

Why? What are we doing this for? The stress? The lack of sleep? The midnight breakdowns?

No.

It’s for the letter. The letter that you will receive in the mail, either in mid-December (if you apply early decision) or in March (if you apply regular decision). The letter that says “Congratulations! We are please to inform you that you have been accepted in to (insert your first choice here).”

But that is when the letter comes. Until then, and I assume the wait will be agonizing, there will be nothing left for any of us to do. We’ll have to believe that we did all we could to do, that we tried our best.

For now, though, we have to get through it. It’s the beginning of August. We have until January, for the lucky ones, November, but we will make it through. It will all be worth it. And when we receive that letter, that is when it starts. Really.