by Luna Sandoval
Every year the senior class of Ouray High School comes together to take advantage of Free Application Week to apply to Colorado colleges and universities for no cost. This year, it occurred on October 18-20.
Figuring out post graduation plans is stressful and many seniors would happily avoid the topic. Being able to apply to any college in Colorado for free lifts a lot of weight off of students and can save hundreds of dollars that would have been spent on applications.
Five Ouray High School students were able to apply to several colleges each during that week.
Clifford Utech applied to Western Colorado University, Colorado State University, Colorado College, University of Colorado Boulder, and Colorado School of Mines. Clifford wants to stay in Colorado “because of its many opportunities that would benefit” his interests, including photography. Clifford also did a virtual tour of the University of Oregon, sparking interest in an unfamiliar place that “was so beautiful” to him. But Clifford said that although Oregon seems like a dream to live in, “saying goodbye to home is very unrealistic”.
DC Miller applied to University of Colorado Boulder and Colorado State University. DC hopes to stay in Colorado for college and be able to stay in touch with his friends and family that live in the Denver area.
Mica Hart applied to Colorado College, University of Colorado Boulder, Denver University, and Colorado School of Mines, where her older brother Hayden is attending. While she does not plan to attend Mines, DU, or UC Boulder, Mica said she wanted to give “April-Mica more choices.”
Luna Sandoval applied to Colorado State University, University of Northern Colorado, and Western Colorado University. “I don’t really want to decide where to go now,” she said, “but I hope to end up somewhere in the Denver area so that I can be close to my friends and my mountains, but I’m also applying to places far away, like Puget and Hawaii.”
Pallen McArdle applied to Denver University, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Denver, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, and University of Northern Colorado, but Pallen believes that her future is far past these mountains, and is planning to make her way to the east coast for college.
While the entire class got together to fill out applications, not everyone applied to Colorado schools. Some, like Morgan Clark, worked on finishing the CommonApp, which is a very useful portal to apply to colleges all around the world. “It was long and stressful,” but “very convenient,” she said.
Others were already well along on their application process. Nate Kissingford started applying to schools in early August and, by mid-October, had written “about 15 or 18 different essays” and “tweaked them to fit different essay topics,” which resulted in submitting approximately 40 essays to admissions offices and musical theater departments at 25 schools. He said he “was kinda over it” by the time free application week started.
Although senior Brayden Patterson did not apply to any schools, he thinks that free application week “is a very helpful thing and gives students a lot of information and can open new doors. Anyone can change their mind,” he added, and “giving your future self more options won’t hurt.”