You’ve graduated! It was your last year in high school and the long wait is finally over. Perhaps you left many sweet memories of your high school career; student body president, track star, starting basketball player, superior ratings in your piano solo, or whatever else you accomplished. You made many friends, probably a few enemies, and now its time to move on. But now what? Showcase yourself and what you did!

was that your senior year wasn’t just a time to have fun and mess around. You realized that it became the time when you learned that if you wanted to get into college, you would have to sell yourself.

You aren’t doing anything illegal, but applying for college admission and for college scholarships is nothing short of one big self advertisement. So what do you do to get into college? I don’t recommend creating a billboard on the freeway and posting everything cool about you, but essentially, that’s about what you need to do. Or how do you find a sweet scholarship for yourself? In order to help you with this process, I am going to tell you some very easy things that can be done in order to help you in this whole process.

First, you have to realize that it is all about the application. College admissions boards look at thousands of applicants every semester and so you can’t afford to take any short cuts when filling it out. If the application is to be filled out by hand be sure to use your best handwriting possible. Write so slow and neat that it as easy to read as computer font. Take an entire day to carve out such readable handwriting if you have to. College admissions are not going to spend any time trying to decipher your handwriting because it’s not worth it to them.

Make your application user friendly, readable, organized and neat.

Second, respectable language, use it. ” I wouldn’t recommend using it when speaking with a college admissions board; it is a professional sales pitch. You have to use the best grammar, the best choice of words, and the best sentence structure of your life, chiefly when you are coming up with any sort of essay. Remember if it sounds like a rap song you know you ought to start over.

3rd, it never hurts to be cocky in this situation.

Most times we are so concentrated on being sure that we aren’t loving ourselves too much that we make it so we seem to not give ourselves credit for all the cool things we have done or do. Find a way to bring out every one of your good points in an application. The list, Hispanic, of things to include are endless. For example: teaching any age group in your church. Allow them to make a choice on the real you and not just the you that was sick the day of the SAT or ACT and did terrible on it.

Now, I hate having to mention the fourth one but it becomes a killer for applicants.

Deadlines. I know that seems like an obvious thing you must be aware of but it is one of the most ignored principles out there. Please don’t procrastinate the day of your submitting your application. A lot of times the admissions officers already accept applicants before the deadline even ends. Wouldn’t it be nicer to not have to compete with so many others just by getting your application in early? Do it, it will help.

The final suggestion, be ready for a few letters of rejection. Don’t expect every college or scholarship committee to love you.

Some may be looking for other types of students and perhaps they feel that you wouldn’t enjoy their school. That doesn’t not mean though that no one wants you. It simply means you have to try again, it is hard work to get free money and it takes a lot of time to dedicate your life to education. Be ready to make those sacrifices and try and try again.

Colleges need students so keep trying. Scholarship, Hispanic, committees also are willing to give out the bling bling. So don’t delay and get on top of things by starting your admissions process now.

Use these steps and you will be very grateful when you get that acceptance letter in the mail.