Page 4 - KnightTime News Winter 2018

KNIGHTtime News
GUIDING YOUR COLLEGE PROCESS
By Lisa Giarratano
DO:
Do check your portal or email in private.
We cannot stress this one enough. As the decision release dates approach, buzz around campus starts to pick up. Everyone seems to know X University is releasing on December 13 at 3:00 pm PST, and somehow, most people have an idea of who applied where. Don’t be caught standing on the senior quad with your phone in your hand receiving news for the world to see. If you’re
in private, you can choose what to
THE DOS AND
DON’TS of Receiving Admissions Decisions
do next: call your parents, a close friend, your counselor (ahem). If it’s bad news, I think it’s pretty obvious why you wouldn’t want to be under a microscope. Plan ahead about where you’ll go to get the news.
Do allow yourself to celebrate or mourn.
Most likely, this news will come at the start of a long, well-deserved holiday break. This is a gift. If you get the news you were hoping for, celebrate! Be excited! Give yourself some time to reflect on your hard work and, most importantly, feel gratitude (’tis the season, after all). If you get news that disappoints you, give yourself permission to feel that. Being let down is a bummer and it’ll sting. Recognize you have some time off from school to get everything together for Round II, and start channeling your energy into something you can control: your regular decision applications.
Do plan ahead.
Think... *really think*... about how
it will feel when you get one of the three decisions (admit, defer, deny). If you applied to three or more schools, you might hear all three results.
Visualize how it will feel for each school. Picture where you’ll get the news, how you will feel, what you will do next.
Do let your counselor know.
We are well aware this process is
all about you, but we honestly lose sleep over your applications this time of year. Everything you want for yourself? We want for you. We’ve been writing letters and obsessing over your essays and putting good juju out into the universe since you’ve hit “submit,” and we are eager to know what happened with your applications. Please keep us posted!
DON’T:
Don’t post to social media.
Students have gotten much better about this over the years but this still comes up as an issue annually. Your good news is just that: yours. If you can’t figure out a way to feel good about your news without sharing it on social media, that’s worrisome. Tell a few close friends and family, but don’t gloat. It’s unbecoming. (Same goes for you, parents!)
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