How to Deal with Application Anxiety

The college admissions process can be anxiety-inducing — miserable, even. But it’s relative; not everyone feels it in the same way, or to the same extent. All these factors can affect your experience with college admissions:

• How studious and organized are you?
• How much effort are you putting into the application process?
• Are you paying attention to details?
• Are you consistent about deliverables?

• How dependable is your support team?

Even if all these factors are going your way, it’s still normal to deal with some level of application anxiety. What matters then is how you cope and push through.

Here are some insights to help you overcome application anxiety.

Start Early to Stress Less About the Application Process

Starting the college application process late in your senior year of high school is like putting a turkey in the oven at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day: not advisable.

Ideally, your college aspirations should inform the decisions you make about classes and extracurriculars as early as ninth grade — maybe sooner. USF’s latest College Planning Guide starts with steps you can take in seventh or eighth grade, then provides a substantial checklist of steps you can complete for each year through high school graduation.

It’s an ongoing process. You can search for scholarships before you reach senior year, take and retake standardized tests to raise your score, and enroll in advanced courses that add rigor to your record (and earn you college credit). The earlier you start, the more time you’ll have to work on all this.

Prepare for the Process with an Organized Approach

Filling out applications for prospective colleges is the last lap of the race. Your success will depend on your ability and preparation. Make a habit of being studious and organized:

• Do the homework: Completing your high school coursework is essential; so is researching what the colleges you are targeting expect from their applicants.
• Make lists: Write out your goals and the steps to achieve them. Some of these lists may be general, while others may be specific to a certain targeted college.
• Track requirements, dates, and deadlines: You should always know what you need to deliver and when. Keep a special calendar just for college admissions or track everything in a spreadsheet. Set reminders that will notify you when it’s time for action.

There’s wisdom in the saying, “Those who fail to plan are planning to fail.” Feeling anxious about everything you haven’t done yet can hinder you from doing what’s still required, keeping you from your goal. Conversely, knowing what you need to do and when can feel empowering. Try this:

1. Break the process down into specific objectives.
2. Find a way to spread the work out over months or years.
3. Hold yourself accountable for giving your best effort to each objective.

Forming these habits will lead to success not only in college admissions, but long after.

Extra Effort Makes Your College Application Stronger

When you start filling out a college application, it is the culmination of every class and activity you’ve chosen, every grade you made, and every standardized test you’ve taken. Before you type a single line, soak in that feeling of accomplishment!

The paperwork push itself is a herculean task, but you also need to invest time and effort into some peripheral tasks before you can begin in earnest:

• Nurture relationships that can produce good references and guidance.
• Know yourself well enough to write essays that will strike a chord with admissions office staff.
• Push for the best SAT/ACT/CLT score possible.
• Assemble the financial aid documents you’ll need to fill out the FAFSA.

These parts of the overall application process can be painfully daunting; that’s why the process conjures words such as “stress” and “anxiety.” Some people are shy, some struggle with creative writing, and some get freaked out during test-taking.

When you aim high, achieving your goals won’t be easy! Are you prepared to put in the effort required to overcome these challenges?

College admissions are increasingly competitive, so there will inevitably be applicants who have more natural talent than you. Don’t sweat it; it’s something we all have to recognize about life. Putting in a lot of effort — showing you really want this — can help you narrow the gap and make you a stand-out applicant, too.

• When it’s time to study, study.
• When you have a chance to engage with a counselor or mentor, take it.
• Explore your talents through extracurricular activities and discover your weaknesses along the way.

In short, it’s all about being willing to expend the necessary effort at the right time. When you sit down to start the final paperwork, you’ll have finished most of the truly hard work already.

Pay Attention to Details During the Application Process

When you’re waiting for a decision from a college you applied to, feeling on edge is a totally normal, human response. There are three types of college admissions letters, and waiting to see which you’ll get is an emotional rollercoaster.

Knowing you’re on top of every detail will help you feel in control. Here are some best practices:

• Keep copies of every application you submit, as well as any additional forms or supporting materials. Most of this process will be handled digitally, but it’s a good idea to print hard copies if possible.
• When you get a digital notice of receipt, save it to your hard drive and print a copy, if possible. If something falls through the cracks on the college’s end, you’ll have a way to prove what you sent them and when.
• Extend these habits to your counselor and anyone who provided a reference for you. Ask them to keep a printed record of what they sent and when.
• Keep a list of contacts in the admissions office at your target schools. Include their names, positions, phone numbers, and emails. You may also want to track each time you speak with them and the topic of conversation.

With so many deadlines and deliverables, you might feel the need to rush through every step, but you should resist that urge. Be quick, but don’t hurry. Hurried people make costly mistakes. Work with urgency, but go slow enough to pay attention to detail.

Understand Each College's Application Requirements and Timeline

Paying attention to detail also means that you go into the application process knowing the timelines and platforms used by your target schools.

Let’s use USF as an illustrative example because — not to sound too cocky — we should definitely be one of your targeted schools!

A prospective USF student should begin by visiting our Freshman Dates and Deadlines page. That’s where you can find application deadlines and supporting materials deadlines for Early Action, Regular Decision, and Rolling Admissions, the three application periods, so you know how long you have left to do the work. For each period, we also provide a specific decision release window, so you’ll know how long you’ll be waiting for our reply, too.

The How to Apply page gives you the exact steps you need to follow and clarifies some of the application requirements and terminology. It explains that the first step is submitting an application, either through the USF website or through the Common App. There are a few things to remember:

• You won’t be able to apply until the application opens for your desired semester. Know that date so you can hit the ground running. If you act swiftly, you can enjoy the benefits of Early Action.
• USF has multiple campuses, so you’ll apply to your campus of choice (though your campus assignment may be switched due to certain factors).
• Some majors are only offered at certain USF campuses, so our application lets you search for your desired major and pick your campus based on that.
• If you can’t finish the application in one sitting, that’s okay. Your progress will be saved and you can return to finish later.
• USF doesn’t require an application essay or admissions interview.

Once you submit the application, you’ll gain access to the Applicant Portal using your unique log-in. That’s where you’ll complete the rest of the application process, like paying your application fee and submitting your grades via STARS. You’ll get confirmation within the Applicant Portal when your documents are received and processed.

Colleges like USF strive to make all this information clear and available online. If one of your targeted colleges doesn’t explain their application process in plain language on their site, don’t hesitate to contact their admissions office and ask them to explain the steps. Be sure to also ask which platforms or apps they expect you to use during the process and how they work.

Remember: Get all the details you can! The more you understand the process, the more you engage with it, the more you’ll feel in control.

Follow Up After Submitting Your Applications

Once you’ve submitted your application and supporting documents, you might feel ready to disengage while you wait for a decision, but that could open you up to issues.

Stay engaged and follow through. Phantom problems won’t wake you up in the middle of the night because you’ll always know what’s going on with your application.

Try these tips:

• Always submit documents as early as possible, and well before deadlines.
• Keep an eye on any tracking systems provided by the schools you applied to. Paper receipts are rare in the digital age; you may receive confirmation via email or through a platform like USF’s Applicant Portal. Look for confirmation when you submit documents, and if it’s not provided, commit to checking the status of your submissions later — as many times as it takes to ensure receipt.
• Wait at least four to six weeks to contact admissions offices. Colleges receive a high volume of applications and each one needs individual assessment. That takes a lot of time.
• Your counselor is an amazing resource. They have insight into college admissions and you might need their help to access or send certain documents.
• If your standardized test scores don’t reach a school, contact the testing company to ensure they were sent properly.
• If reference letters or other documents provided by your college support team aren’t delivered to the college, contact the people responsible for sending the documents to confirm they were sent and if necessary, ask them to send the documents again.

The professionals working within this system are great at what they do, but errors happen and delays are possible. This is your dream! Take ownership and make sure you’re getting the fair shot you’re promised.

Build a Strong College Support Team

Your application process is a team effort made by you and some combination of friends, siblings, parents, counselors, and reference providers.

You can’t choose your family, and you probably can’t choose your counselor, but you know who your friends are and personal engagement should teach you what to expect from your references.

Consult friends who are already in college, or who graduated from college within the last few years. You can learn a lot from their first-hand experience. Hindsight is 20/20, and their regrets may be your warnings.

When it comes to reference providers, the more time you’ve invested in the relationship, the more you can depend on them. Talk to your favorite teachers and administrators about your ambitions whenever you have the chance, and model responsibility at school. Being a teacher’s pet is nothing but beneficial when it’s time to ask for references!

The team you assemble will help you navigate the application maze. When you struggle with the inevitable anxiety the process produces, you can turn to them to help you cope.

Ways to Cope with College Application Anxiety

These days, students are applying to 13 to 15 colleges. If you submit that many applications, odds are you’re going to get at least one rejection — and it may be to your top choice school. The specter of that disappointment can be hard to shake.

Along with the possibility of being denied admission, the application process produces other stressful scenarios:

• “Are my grades good enough? Does my schedule have enough rigor? Are my extracurriculars enough?”
• “I hate testing, but I have to excel at these standardized tests or I’ll never get in!”
• “That test was so hard! There’s no way my score will be good enough…”
• “What if I pick a college and it’s not a good fit after all? What if I miss out on something better?”
• “What if I fail at college?”

That list reads like a high school senior’s top five horror movie plots, so some emotional turmoil is understandable.

When it comes to stress and anxiety, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. All the time and effort you spend getting the applications right will help minimize stress and anxiety down the line.

When the going gets tough, lean on your college support team to help you cope. Seek out pro tips on managing stress and anxiety, and if things get out of hand, seek help from a mental health professional.

No matter what you’re feeling, take heart:

• You are not the first or only person to feel this way, and there’s nothing wrong with you.
• USF’s admissions team keeps your experience top-of-mind, and we’re constantly making improvements that smooth the process for our applicants.

If USF is on your college radar, contact the Office of Admissions for help. We’re always ready with advice and answers.