WARNING: Beware of College Apps

The Lobo Center isn’t normally full of students but this time it was packed with students completing their University
of California and Cal State applications several hours before the deadline. This is called doing your applications
last minute. Something I would not recommend any future classes at Rancho Dominguez to do.

College applications are a very important and crucial part to your senior year and if you’re doing them at the last
minute it shows that you heavily procrastinated and never budgeted your time correctly. Leaving these applications until the last minute, will increase stress and anxiety levels. Aside from completing the applications more stress is
piled on if teachers decide to leave extra work in other courses you’re enrolled in. Evidently, this is a clear example of what english teacher Ms. Kasuyama calls “Loboitis” the fact that students wait to do applications last minute, instead of planningahead and doing things on time.

Doing your college applications on time means you have extra time to revise your essays and terminate any inaccuracies or mistakes on your application. This also applies deeply to the CSU application because if you decide to apply to the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) two teachers have to write a recommendation for you and doing so promptly works best because you do not want to rush your teachers.

The CSU application opens in September and the UC application opens on August 1st meaning you can even start your applications while you’re on summer break and not have to deal with the bulk of the work during school.

Starting applications early will reduce the amount of stress and work on your shoulders, and will give you more free time to work on any other work from other classes. Teachers won’t be in a rush to complete the recommendation letters, but instead they will have the time to make the recommendation letters the best that they could be to
make you the most appealing student for the select school or program.

Their really isn’t any valuable excuse for doing your application last minute besides being misinformed or not knowing deadlines or application information. And besides most of the information for your college applications can be found at the click of a button or after a quick google search.

Rancho also has the Lobo Center, which is always open and ready to answer any questions about anything college related lead by counselor Mr. Viveros, CJ who work or USC as part of the National College Advising Corps, grad student interns, and ETS counselors for students a part of the program. That’s at the minimum 4 people who can help you with your college applications not to mention Ms. Storey or Ms. Caceres, the school’s academic counselors.

Please, Class of 2019 and everybody who succeeding them do your applications early and don’t make the same mistakes I and other seniors from this year’s class and past classes have done. Plan with the counselors in the Lobo Center, do your applications accordingly, and don’t fall into the “Loboitis” epidemic. Best of luck!