With college application season coming up, Palatine High school seniors are starting to feel the pressure. 

Pressure placed on them by family and faculty alike to choose a college to go to. But there are lots of factors to consider when choosing a college, like proximity and cost.

“Right away, I think of Harper College just because it’s close to where I live,” senior Dennis Bugarin said. 

Harper College is a 2 year community college that’s affordable and not too far from Palatine. And if you’ve kept up with Harper’s Promise, it’s a good school to choose if you’re unsure of your future plans, which is why Bugarin chose this school.

“For my main factor, I just considered if the colleges suited my interests, like if it had programs that were best for my major. The only other factor was that it had to be in state because of my food allergies,” senior Joseph Kurian said.

Like Kurian and other students who are limited to school in state, there are still plenty of colleges to choose from. Kurian has a bunch of options, like the University of Chicago, UIUC, and Northwestern. Kurian is limited by proximity, but he’s expanded his view to other schools in the state. 

And there are obviously plenty of other factors to consider when choosing a school, and that can be very stressful. There are so many resources readily available through the school that students can use to find out more about their colleges.

“The school has a whole spreadsheet with scholarships and college visits that’s regularly updated,” family and consumer sciences teacher Kris Stary, said.

Stary believes that students need to take advantage of the resources available to them, such as the scholarship list through the school website and the career trek opportunities through the career services Schoology page. There are already many resources available to students, they just need to be taken advantage of while they’re available.