Do All You Can

This week we welcome Communications Officer (and former Assistant Director of Admission) Becky Tankersley back to the blog. Welcome, Becky!

I came home yesterday to find two very sad, wilted tomato plants. If you haven’t been to Atlanta in July, let me assure you—the southern humidity is no joke. I grew up in the mountains, so every year when we hit July and August I lament the stickiness of the heat. When I was growing up my family always raised a big garden. Still today I love the entire process of gardening, from planting to caring and of course the ultimate harvest of the plant. This year I hoped to build raised beds for my garden, but instead we prioritized building a new deck (after all, life all comes down to priorities in the end). The raised beds are now on the to-do list for next year. All that to say, that’s how I ended up with tomato plants living in five-gallon buckets.

The great thing about a tomato plant in a bucket is it’s pretty easy to care for—no weeding, no plowing the ground, no building of beds. You put it in there, stick a cage around it, and boom! You’re done.

The not-so-great thing about a tomato plant in a bucket (aside from the not-so-pretty appearance) is it dries out in the summer sun quickly. Because it’s contained, it has no way to pull moisture from anything beyond the bit of dirt it’s confined to. So if you miss a watering, things can go downhill pretty fast.

When I arrived home yesterday and looked out the backdoor, my stomach sank—one plant was wilted to the point that every single leaf and limb drooped down at least a couple of inches. I raced outside, grabbed the watering can, and filled each bucket with plenty of water. I shook my head in frustration at myself, then shrugged, hoping for the best. Aside from giving the plants water, there wasn’t much more I could do besides wait and see how they fared.

Life Unattended

Life, tasks, and relationships, gone unattended, can wither quickly before you realize it. No matter your season of life, there are lots of important things to think about…. Family, friends, school, activities, and, for you rising seniors, those pesky college applications looming right around the corner.

I can hear the collective sigh from here, “its summer! I have plenty of time to work on those. I’ll think about it later.” You’re right. But for students in Georgia (and other southern states), “summer” will end in the next 2-3 weeks as school gets back in session (for those of you in other parts of the country who don’t start school until after Labor Day—enjoy the summer! But know the start of school is coming for you soon).

We’ve written before about getting your college application ready—the most important thing to do… tips to keep make your life easier… how to write an essay… and insight into how a holistic application review works at selective schools.

Application deadlines will be here before long. So after you’ve done a little research on the links above (hint, hint), worked on your application, and hit submit, you can sit back and wait, right?

Kind of… but no. Like the tomato plants, if you just put it out there and pay no more attention to it, things can go downhill fast. I know much of the college admission process is out of your control. But there are a few action items you can put on your list to care for your application as it moves through the review process.

Read your emails from any colleges to which you applied. Notice I didn’t say check your emails, or skim your emails—READ your emails! We’re all guilty of checking emails on a mobile device. While it’s great to quickly access your inbox, it can come back to bite you if you glance at a message, it moves to “read” in your inbox, and then totally falls off your radar. Take the time to read all emails you receive from colleges where you have an active application. Once you become an applicant, colleges reach out to you more regularly with all kinds of updates and next steps.  If you don’t have time to read an email at the moment, mark it as unread and come back to it later. But by all means, don’t let it just sit there! Otherwise you could be making a panicked phone call near another impending deadline, pleading for more time.

Check your admission portal. Many schools have a way for you to check on your application status. This is a tool at your disposal to access whenever you like, but on average a weekly check is adequate. When you’re checking your portal, I again implore you to READ any notes that are in there—don’t panic at the first red “x” you see on a checklist, but instead read to learn what’s missing and what kind of timeline you have to get the task completed.

Be patient, and don’t panic! Every year we receive the vast majority of our applications within 48 hours of the actual application deadline. When this happens, it takes longer than usual for processing staff to import your application and find any matching documents that may already be in hand (insider tip: don’t submit any documents until AFTER you submit your actual application—everything comes together much more quickly that way). Also, keep in mind that at some schools the application deadline for you is different from the document deadline for your counselor and recommenders. If that’s the case and your counselor assures you they’ll send it in, please give them time to do it!  Once something is sent in, if the college website says “allow 3-5 days for processing,” then allow 3-5 days—we’re not kidding!

Take care of yourself. As you complete all the steps above, don’t forget to take those small moments to take care of yourself. Hang out with your friends, find some form of exercise, get some sleep, go outside, and give your parents plenty of hugs (trust me, it will make you all feel better!). Self-care is important, so don’t shrug it off.

Once application season ends, you will harvest the fruits of your labor. I’m not saying you will magically get in to every school you’ve applied to… but if you have a strong, diverse list of schools (both competitive and not as competitive) you will be getting in somewhere (most likely several somewhere’s). In the end, you can look back and know that you put forth your best effort.

Back to the Tomatoes…

Sometimes my plants don’t yield what I hope they will (case in point, my blackberry vines, which merely survived the winter in buckets and are now planted in the ground but are still overcoming the shock of change… a blog topic for another day). Sometimes the tomatoes become unhealthy for no reason other than something was floating in the air on a particular day. But my goal, always, is to look back and know that I did all I could. I pruned, I watered, I cared, and I waited.

The good news: this morning my tomatoes looked good as new. And this time, before I came to work, I didn’t forget to give them a good drink before another 90+ degree day.

So do all you can, in college applications and in life in general, so you can look back and know you did all you could, and everything will work out just as its meant to be.

Becky Tankersley has worked in higher education for more than 10 years. She joined Georgia Tech in 2012 after working at a small, private college in the mountains of Northeast Tennessee. Prior to working in higher education, she worked as a television news producer. Her current role blends her skills in college recruitment and communication. Becky is the editor of  the GT Admission Blog, and also serves as a Content Coordinator for the American Association of Collegiate Registrar and Admission Officers.