It’s officially coming around to that wonderful time in every student’s education where college applications are beginning to take up so much of both students’ and parents’ minds. Thankfully, the college admissions process is easier than ever before, and this guide should help you better understand what our college admissions officers expect of their applicants.

First off, as a prospective student, it’s important for us to see academic rigor in your workload. A good student must be able to keep up with his or her classes, and because of this we expect students to have a GPA of at least 4.5 to show that they are not just perfect, but better than perfect. We have had complaints in the past claiming that this may be putting undue “pressure on students” who are “children who need to have free time and enjoy their lives,” but we all know that to build students into the best people they can be, we have to put them to work every waking and non-waking hour of the day.

While anyone can and should do the simple things like volunteering or a sport, a good set of extracurriculars are what really makes a student stand out to us. To show that you are a good person, it’s always good to devote your entire summer towards building houses in remote villages, curing cancer and solving world hunger. Also, we hope to see that you are able to be the captain of at least four sports teams and founder, president and vice president of your school, thereby showing us that you are able to take initiative and leadership positions.

Moving forward, let’s talk about standardized testing. As a step towards providing people from a variety of backgrounds an equitable opportunity to admission, we are now testing optional (please note that all applicants who opt out of testing will be looked down upon strongly and should rethink their life decisions). When looking at test scores, a competitive applicant should be able to get a perfect 1600 while simultaneously reciting every word in the English dictionary, balancing on one foot and wearing a blindfold.

The essay portion of your application is a wonderful opportunity for you to truly express yourself and use your voice for us to better understand who you are. This section is therefore an important part of our overall evaluation. All essays must be engaging, informative, exciting and truly change the reader’s perspective on life as we know it, redefining to them what it means to be alive. All essays must stay under 200 words.

We hope that this guide made the already simple college experience just that much more approachable to you. If you follow all of these guidelines, you have a good chance at being an above average applicant. Please keep in mind that no matter how good you appear, all applicants will go through a coin flip stage in our decision making, meaning that we can and will reject your application for no rhyme or reason, without justification. We hope to see you walk through our doors this fall at Southern District of Northwest Ohio Community College!