10 Mental Health Tips to Get You Through College Application Season

College application season is here! Traditional activities include chugging energy drinks, obsessively refreshing your application portal, and panicking about your academic future. Some people also choose to celebrate by staying up all night writing their application essays or having an existential crisis. How festive!

In all seriousness, we know college apps can take a toll on your mental health. Although we can’t eliminate the stress of college application season, we can help you manage it. We reached out to mental health experts, peer advisors, and college recruiters for these 10 mental health tips to get you through application season.

1. Know Your Intrinsic Worth

Before you even start your college apps, drill this into your brain: Your worth is not tied to the outcome of your application.

“Don’t equate your self-worth with your goals, because goals can fall to pieces,” says Derek Nettingham, director of undergraduate recruitment at USF. “Because the university may not take your application does not mean you’re a terrible person [or] … a terrible student. It doesn’t mean that you’re not worthy.”

Learn this lesson now and you’ll save yourself a lot of stress in life.

“You are more than a student. You are so many other things,” says Kameron Talley, assistant director of health promotion at USF’s Center for Student Well-Being.

What you achieve matters much less than who you are: your values, ideas, and existence in this world. No one can take that away from you.

2. Start College Prep Early and Stay Flexible

There’s a lot you can’t control about college admissions, but you can set yourself up for success by having the strongest application possible. “If you have this rockstar profile, you take so much more of the process out of [admissions officers’] hands,” Nettingham says. “If you do Early Action with a 1300 SAT and a 4.5 GPA, what can I do to not let you in?”

If you don’t have a rockstar profile, that’s okay too. There are many pathways to college — like starting at a state college and transferring to a four-year university. Taking any step towards higher education is massive, Nettingham points out.

As we explain in this blog post on college choice, where you go to college doesn’t matter as much as what you choose to do with the opportunity.

Most of all, don’t compare yourself to other people. “It’s not a race,” says Heather Walders, assistant director of outreach and community engagement at USF’s counseling center. “It’s your own pace.”

3. Build a Support System

Assemble a support team: trusted teachers and coaches, your school’s guidance counselor and therapist, and your family members and mentors. Depending on the person’s role in your life, you can ask them for small favors, like:

• Can you help me figure out how to keep track of deadlines?
• Would you review my application essay and give me feedback?
• I'm feeling overwhelmed. Can I vent to you?

Your friends can be some of your biggest supporters. “My peers were going through the same thing that I was,” says Anna Arnold, a lead peer health educator at USF. “Just that sense of community … helps build some of that encouragement and motivation.”

Science backs this up: Hanging out with friends literally makes life look less scary. In one study, students wore heavy backpacks and stood at the bottom of a hill with a 26-degree incline. Alone, they guessed the hill was very steep, but with a friend at their side, they thought it looked less daunting.

4. Find Community Resources

Lean on your community for additional support:

• Reach out to your local library. Often, libraries host college prep workshops.
• Call your local crisis center hotline. It’s not just for people in crisis; it’s a source of resources. They’ll help you get what you need (with or without insurance), like therapy, social services, food, and clothing.

Let admissions officers know of any challenges you’re facing. “We do encourage that you are as transparent as possible,” Nettingham says. It’s easier to handle things earlier in the process than later down the line.

Keep in mind that admissions officers are mandatory reporters, which means if you are in danger, they may need to share what you tell them with an authority. Once they know your situation, they can connect you with resources, like aid for housing-insecure students.

“If you are confused about any portion of the process, please reach out to your admissions representative,” Nettingham says. “We’ve heard it all. You’re not going to freak us out. We’re not going to judge you or your application. We want to be there to support.”

5. Practice Self-Care

When deadlines loom, you might be tempted to skip meals or bail on sleep. But this is the opposite of what your mind and body needs.

“Even if you do feel pressed for time … don’t neglect your basic needs,” says Talley. “You will function better if your stress levels are not too high.”

Taking care of yourself looks like:

• Eating healthy.
• Sleeping 7-9 hours a night.
• Spending time with friends.
• Exercising.
• Going outside.
• Keeping a consistent routine.
• Practicing self-care.

Ultimately, what self-care looks like is up to you. Now is the perfect time to find the right wellness strategy for you and your body — whether that’s yoga or weightlifting, painting or mindfulness.

“I think one of the greatest things about self-care and stress management …is [that] everybody loves something different,” says Talley.

6. Catch, Challenge, and Change Unhealthy Thoughts

You’re under a lot of stress right now, which makes it easy for your brain to spiral into cognitive distortions (or “thinking errors”) like these:

• Black-and-white thinking: You see events as either all good or all bad, with no middle ground. I have to be accepted into my dream school or I have no future!
• Catastrophizing: You can only consider the worst-case scenario. If I don’t write the perfect essay, I’ll never get into college.
• Shoulds and Musts: You blame yourself for things you “shouldn’t” have done and put pressure on yourself for things you “should” do. I should get into the best school or else I’m a failure.
• Emotional reasoning: You let your emotions tell you what’s true without rationally questioning it. I feel like I’m a failure so it must be true.

To combat these thoughts, Talley gives students a simple exercise: catch, challenge, and change.

• Catch the thought: “Sometimes I just need to acknowledge the fact that I had … this negative thought about myself, and that didn’t feel good,” Talley says.
• Challenge the thought: Ask yourself, “Why did I have that thought? Is it true? Does anything back up this thought? If my best friend had this thought about themselves, what would I tell them?”
• Change the thought: Aim for a kinder, more balanced thought. “Just because I didn’t get into this school doesn’t mean my college career is over. Who knows what other opportunities are waiting for me?”

Practice this exercise enough, and it’ll eventually become a habit.

7. Limit Social Media Scrolling

Negative thought spirals are harder to combat thanks to social media, which has turned college admission into a status symbol.

“[Students are] waiting for their letter, and they want that moment, and they want their big wow and their post,” Nettingham says. “I can’t imagine the immense amount of social pressure you have to just make your letter video.”

How do you opt out of this comparison game? “If you see that you have an unhealthy relationship with social media … then just cut it out for a little bit,” Nettingham suggests. Pay attention to your mind and body: when you feel yourself shift into anxiety, shame, or jealousy, it’s time to stop scrolling.

Putting a screen time limit on your social media can be a good compromise. If you find that you keep hitting just 15 more minutes, consider taking a more permanent break from social media.

8. Build an Emotional First Aid Kit

In your bathroom cabinet, you’ve probably got one of those plastic first-aid kits. “We need an emotional first aid kit as well, one that’s going to help us be able to manage our stress or calm down if we’re feeling really anxious,” Talley says.

You don’t want to wait until you’re bleeding to compile a first aid kit. In the same way, it’s better to have your emotional first aid kit ready before you need it. You can add:

• The number of your school therapist to your “favorite” phone contacts.
• The names of three people who you would feel safe being vulnerable with.
• Fidget spinners, lavender tea, LEGO, or whatever makes you relax.
• Your favorite mindfulness, breathing, and guided relaxation exercises.

“When I notice I’m stressed or in a situation where I can just feel that my heart rate is higher, [it helps to take] a minute to step back and practice one of those breathing exercises or mindfulness exercises,” Arnold says.

Here’s how to try box breathing, one of Arnold’s favorites:

1. Breathe in for 4 seconds.
2. Hold for 4 seconds.
3. Exhale through your mouth for four seconds.
4. Hold for four seconds.

9. Practice Radical Acceptance and Resiliency

One of the hardest things about college applications is the uncertainty and lack of control. Arnold says radical acceptance helped her keep things in perspective.

“The central idea behind radical acceptance is accepting that there are some things you cannot change and really focusing on what you can change in the situation,” Arnold says.

Imagine three zones:

• Zone 1: Things you cannot control.
  Example: You can’t control the deadlines for college applications.
• Zone 2: Things you can influence.
  Example: You can influence the admissions decision by submitting the best application possible.
• Zone 3: Things you can control.
  Example: You can control your reaction to the decision, whatever it is.

The only part of this process you can truly control is what’s inside you: your emotions, thoughts, values, and decisions. Focus on these and ask yourself, “What kinds of things can I do to improve my reaction, my emotional regulation, my mood?” Walders suggests.

One way to do this is through practicing resilience. “Resiliency is one’s ability to be able to cope and process with life situations,” Talley explains. People aren’t born with resilience; you learn it, just like any other skill. It involves taking care of yourself and having a “growth mindset,” rather than a “fixed mindset.”

• A fixed mindset says, “That school rejected me. I’m not going to be able to go to college.”
• A growth mindset says, “It didn’t work out the way I wanted. I’m going to lean on my friends for support and apply elsewhere.”

“One of the biggest pieces about resiliency is it helps us keep moving forward and learning and growing,” Talley says.

10. Check in With Your Intentions

As you go down the college journey, check in with your intentions, Walders says. “Whose dreams are you trying to fulfill? Are they yours? Are they not?”

It’s a lot easier to stay motivated when you’re following your own career path, not conforming to the expectations of others.

Our downloadable guide can help you check in with yourself during this journey. From breathing exercises to healthy coping strategies, we’ve got you covered, thanks to Walders and Talley’s input.

Do you have questions about USF’s counseling and wellness services? Check out our Health and Wellness page.