The Best Digital College Applications Resource

So. You’re starting your college apps process (mainly talking to juniors, but really an HS student). You’re trying to figure out how the heck you’re going to make it through everything. There’s weird acronyms like OOS, CA, CSS, and FAFSA. And there are so many unknowns like when to start writing essays, how to know what you want in a school, and so many others.

Although I may have had some support around me when it came to figuring out this process, there was one singular resource that, albeit I addictively browsed for a year, really did help me figure out the idiosyncrasies of college admissions. That is, as shown in that picture right at the start, the subreddit r/applyingtocollege.

All of my fellow seniors probably already know and browsed this religiously, but for the few who may not know, here’s the scoop. The page is a forum made up almost exclusively of students, both in high school and college, who ask their questions about the admissions process. Students often can give quick answers back to their fellow users about simple, more straightforward topics. It’s a great way to find any quick, searchable information about a particular school, major, or application in just seconds, rather than just scouring every single school’s page. It significantly improved the speed with which I was able to learn about everything because I could just…