By Steph Harvey
Business & Promotions Editor
The beginning of senior year is a crazy time for many seniors, thanks to the dreaded college application process. Not only do seniors have regular classes to worry about, but now they have extra forms and essays and most of all—deadlines. Worst of all, students receive very little in-school help with applications.
With all the stress of senior year on top of applying to colleges, students can use all the guidance and support they can get when applying to colleges. Some English 12 teachers are doing just that, taking time out of the school year to help students write an essay that is arguably their most important essay they will ever write.
“The help from teachers can be that extra push for students to finish, or even start, their applications and submit them,” said senior, Puja Patel, who had the benefit of writing her college essays in English class. “You can also learn a lot from writing college essays in class, even taking some of the skills with you.”
In addition to being beneficial to the students, this assignment is also beneficial to the teachers. “The college essay assignment provides teachers with a valuable way to get to know our students in the beginning of the year,” 12th grade English teacher, Kristen Casile said.
“Through these essays, we learn about our students’ interests, involvement in activities, and goals for the future.”
Even students who are not applying to colleges are helping English teachers “gain insight into [their] students’ writing abilities. This essay provides [them] with a baseline in terms of writing, and helps teachers recognize the focus correction areas in order to guide instruction.”
Instead of hopelessly trying to balance schoolwork, applications, and everything else in a student’s life, their application now becomes their schoolwork, giving them one less thing to worry about. This begs the question, should it be required by all English teachers teaching 12 grade to require students to write their college essay in class instead of only select classes?
