You are back from Thanksgiving, you had enough turkey, dressing, stuffing, and pies to last you a lifetime.  You have been following this blog all semester taking our advice, so I know you have gone on your initial school visits, narrowed down your list of schools of interest, sent in your applications early, and if you applied early enough, you have started receiving acceptance letters.  Many of you might be asking yourselves what’s next.  Let me put it to you this way; you can look at the college application process as a race.  You want to get out of the blocks quickly, keep your pace up, and most importantly, you want to finish strong.

You got out of the blocks quickly with your early campus visits and your list of potential schools. You kept up the pace with the narrowing of your schools of interest and your early applications, now the finish line is in site but you cannot slow up now.  You need to see it through.  And here are some things you can do to make sure that all of your hard work pays off.

You want to stay up to date with all the information from all of the schools you are interest in.  The best way to do that is to stay in contact with the college representatives of these colleges.  They will have all of the latest information about scholarships, fees that you might have to pay, and due dates for important documents you will need to submit.  For example, as a recruiter for OU, I am constantly in contact with my students letting them know about scholarships that are available to them.  For example, the University of Oklahoma has teamed with the NBA team in Oklahoma City, the Oklahoma City Thunder, to offer a scholarship to incoming freshman students.  It is an excellent opportunity for our soon to be Sooners, and the best part is you will be recognized as a winner at a Thunder game.  To apply for the scholarship you can fill out the application online.

I know that you have already visited the schools that you are interested in, but now you need to schedule a more personalized school visit.  You want to possibly sit in on a class, speak with current students, and see where you will be living during your freshman year.  Here at OU, we can personalize your campus visit.  Whatever subject you are interested in, we can have you sit down with a representative from that college.  They will be able to better show you what is expected of students in that particular field.  We can also have a current student take you to lunch.  We accomplish two goals with this, 1) show off our award winning dining facilities & 2) it gives you the opportunity to sit down and pick the brain of one of our students here at OU.  They can give the inside scoop on what it is like to be a Sooner.

As a high school senior I am pretty sure you have taken your fair share of standardized test.  You are probably tired of seeing the ACT and the SAT.  I’m going to ask you to do something you probably won’t like but it is in your best interest.  I want you to continue taking your ACT or SAT test.  OU will continue to accept you updated test scores until April 30^th.  These tests are very important especially when it comes to qualifying for scholarships.  If you retake the test and your score improves and with the new score you qualify for a better scholarship, you will receive that scholarship.  It’s worth your time to sit down and take the test again to try to improve your chances at qualifying for a scholarship.

You have done great so far.  Why slow up now?  All your hard work is paying off.  We just need you to hold on a little longer.  Don’t slow up; dig deep down and FINISH STRONG!!!