Staying Organized

GETTING AND STAYING ORGANIZED

It is absolutely vital that you stay organized during the college application process. You will receive countless papers from universities, the college and career center, and financial aid-related organizations. Each student should develop his or her own system of organization but here are some tips to help you get started:

• Be consistent and use only one email address for all your correspondence with colleges and universities. Think about creating folders within your email program for each school to which you apply so that you an easily find and refer back to information you've been sent.

• Consider creating a folder in your Google Drive to hold all your essays, downloaded forms from colleges, etc.

• A plastic filing box with organized hanging dividers and manila folders inside. This is a very handy way to file physical documents because it is portable, lightweight, and easy to organize.

• A similar system can be created with an accordion-fold binder. These binders also lend themselves to creating various sections for papers and are also very portable and lightweight.

• Finally, some students prefer to use a normal binder like they would use for their classes, often with pockets to store loose papers. The only drawback to this method is that everything must be hole-punched and sometimes colleges will provide you will booklets that aren't conveniently stored in a binder.

Whatever organization method you choose, it is absolutely imperative that you have one! You will need to keep all of the papers and documents you receive from the moment that you begin applying up until your first day at your new school. If you file papers (online or in a binder) as you work through the application process, things will go much more smoothly when you need to find your applicant ID number to check your acceptance status or the password that you created to select your housing. Work now and the reward comes later!