READY TO GO — Piper Mayo ‘19 visiting one of her top colleges before graduating this year.

This part of the year is a stressful time for seniors waiting for their college decisions to come back. While the first few months of school were spent frantically writing essays and filling out applications, the closure of the year is a time where students are sending out their last few applications before the new year. After this, the waiting can be the most painful part.

However, many Florida colleges choose to use rolling admissions instead of a November 1st or January 1st deadline for applications, which gives students the opportunity to apply to these schools for the fall semester up until May. The flexibility of this allows students to spend extra time on their applications, which will help them have a better chance of being admitted into these selective schools for their freshman year of college next fall.

Riverview varsity basketball player and senior Morgan Windsor ‘19 has taken advantage of the rolling admissions at Florida Southern College located in Lakeland, which allowed her to be accepted this past summer to play basketball at this division two school.

“I was accepted to Florida Southern College early and received the academic merit scholarship. They have the majors i am interested in and I plan on studying marine biology and pre-veterinary science so that I can be a marine veterinarian”, says Windsor.

Some large universities in Florida choose to have set application deadlines, either on November 1st or January 1st. Florida State University and University of Florida require all applications to be sent in by the beginning of November, however the University of Miami requires early decision and early action applications to be submitted by this time and regular decision applications to be sent by the first of the new year.

“Miami’s admissions process was actually one of the less stressful ones because they didn’t require extra writing supplements. Without as much work I could focus more on my essay and the rest of my application. They also offer an early action non-binding application option which is nice because it allows you to show extra interest in the school without the commitment of an early decision application. Now, i’m certainly freaking out a little while waiting until late January to receive a decision, but it’s certainly worth it for the possible opportunity to attend such an amazing school”, says senior Piper Mayo.

For any seniors stressing about the college application process, you should know that the stress will disappear once the acceptance letters are sent out. The worst part is the waiting, and all of the time and hard work put into your school work the past four years will be worth it.