Applying to College

About a year ago I began the preparation of applying to my chosen colleges. I am generally a very proactive person, but I know people who are the complete opposite and ended up putting off applications until their due dates. For about a year, I was certain that I would end up going to Clemson University in South Carolina. I visited the campus twice, and absolutely loved it. On a whim, I decided to apply to the University of Georgia, because it also had everything I was looking for (including my major, which most schools do not have). I ended up being accepted at every school I applied to, and chose to visit Clemson and UGA within the same weekend, so that I would be able to compare my top two schools back-to-back. I ended up falling in love with the University of Georgia. The campus is beautiful year round, they have a well developed genetics program, and a tremendous greek system. I am so glad that I ultimately chose UGA, and I am so excited to be a Dawg! I wanted to share some of my tips with y'all, because my application and decision making process was fairly smooth sailing.

1. Do your research- Find out everything there is to know about your top schools. This will make your college visits and final decisions much easier!

2. Create a list of all of the colleges that you are interested in and their stats- It was very helpful for me to have all the facts about each school displayed in front of me, and made narrowing down my choices much easier. I ended up making a spread sheet on Microsoft Office to do so.

3. Visit each school that you are applying to- It is 100% true that you will not be able to tell if you truly love a school without visiting the campus. The school's atmosphere is definitely a part of the experience.

4. Get your applications done early- I had all of my applications submitted by early October, which allowed for a relatively stress-free application process. This also gave me the opportunity to apply for early action (non-binding) application review, and receive my admission status early in the winter/spring.