A couple of weeks ago, my school had a college night to really ignite the college process. Parents came and learned about all of the aspects of the college admissions process. Parents who were going through this process for the first time were anxiously taking notes over all of the slide show topics, nervous that if they missed one sentence, their child may never get into college. Most of the meeting was concerned with different courses students could take for SATs and with a new course about writing college essays.

I sat there wondering what in the world my parents were doing still coming to these college meetings. They have already sent seven children to college. You would think they finally had the hang of the whole process. But, I then began to realize the difference between applying to college in 2006 and applying to college in 1988. There are far more people going to college now, and therefore colleges can be more selective. So, high schools around the country are trying to devise systems to make the college process as painless as possible and to prepare their students for what lies ahead.

At the meeting the college counselors introduced a new website called Naviance. Technology is not one of my parents' strong points, but the website is pretty self-explanatory to make it easier for the technologically challenged. The website offers many valuable tools such as a place to keep track of my resume, so I am not jamming it together a week before my applications are due. There are scattergrams that show the GPAs and SAT scores of students who got accepted or rejected from all kinds of colleges. This helps give us an idea of where our academics have to be to get into a certain college. There are also applications to help a student decide what types of colleges would fit their personalities and interests. The website has been very interesting to wander around and hopefully will make my college process that much simpler.