Senior Maddie Oliver knew she wanted to major in dance ever since she was a sophomore. When applying to dance schools, Oliver needs to submit videos of her dancing and if the college is interested in her, they give her a callback. So far Oliver has looked at the University of Arizona, Chapman University, Oklahoma City University, Webster, and she just visited Pace university.

After viewing the colleges, Oliver realized that by meeting people at the auditions, it shows her who she’s going to be with and what kind of dancers they are.
“I don’t want to be in a program with all ballerinas because that’s just not me, so, yeah, just kind of finding my own fit. Since I am going to a performing art, it is a lot different like it’s a whole another step and applying to colleges there are extra essay questions,” Oliver said.
Each student takes a different path when applying to college, and they also have different focus points based on what they would like to do when they are older. Each student has a different experience based off of test scores, athletics, and different passions.
Senior Zach Oppenheim has visited Tulane, Texas, and Wisconsin and wants to major in biomedical engineering.

“The colleges I visited had a good combination of biomedical engineering, as well as also being a fun schools and pretty big schools,” Oppenheim said. He enjoyed visiting Tulane most because that is where his brother attends school and it was nice for him to go there and hang out with his brother.

Oppenheim’s opinions did not change much after the visits. “I just got more familiar with what the school had to offer and the environment on the campus,” Oppenheim said.
Senior Matthew Chen earned the stellar score of 36 on the ACT which will give him many advantages when applying to colleges. Chen wants to major in business administration and his goal is to get accepted for a program called the world bachelor and business program through University of Southern California.

“It’s where you spend the first year at USC and the next year at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and then the third year at the University of something in Milan, Italy [Università bocconi]so if I do that, it would be really cool and I’d get like three degrees in business administration from all three colleges, so that’s really what I want to go into right now,” Chen said. The USC motto is fight on which Chen intends to do while he is in college.
“The hardest part of the application process is time management and really just showing the colleges who you really are in such a limited amount of words is the hardest part,”
Chen is looking for a college with the most resources and opportunities with study abroad and internships and he’s excited to see where he will get in.
“The biggest thing I regret in my high school career is how all of the classes I’ve taken have just been to get into college,” Chen said. Chen wishes he took more elective options and less AP classes.
While still being a junior, Emma Kodner started the journey of college visits with schools close to home. Kodner has visited Missouri State and Mizzou.

Kodner wants to major in art therapy and describes it as, “using art in hospitals with patients to improve their physical and mental status,” Kodner said. Kodner preferred Mizzou because of the architecture and it is closer to home.

While visiting Mizzou, Kodner noticed the traditions of running through the pillars as fast as you can and also rubbing the statue of the governor’s nose.

Similarly, junior Lily Miller drove up to Chicago to visit multiple universities. Miller looked at the University of Chicago, Loyola, and Northwestern.

“My favorite schools were University of Chicago and Northwestern because they both just had the right feel for me and they also had a really good education for the majors I want to go into,” Miller said. Northwestern had the tradition of when you first attend there you enter through an archway and then when you graduate you go out the other way.