A chore is an unpleasant but necessary task. Any pleasure to be found is almost always after the chore is done. You might like having a clean bathroom, and you might feel good knowing that the task is behind you. But I’ve yet to meet someone who finds joy in the act of cleaning their bathroom or who looks forward to the next time they will clean it.
For many students, preparing for college feels like a chore. Taking difficult classes, studying for the SAT, running for offices and doing community service and racking up accolades—it starts to feel like a three year progression of tasks that are unpleasant but necessary to get into college.
One of the best ways to take back some control of the admissions process and to be more successful when you apply is to drift towards those things that feel more like a joy than like a chore.
Favorite subjects and teachers, activities a student genuinely loves, hobbies that are pure fun without regard for their perceived college application gravity—the more a student pursues and celebrates those things, the fewer parts of the process will feel like chores (and the more energy they’ll have to complete those necessary chores that remain).
No, it’s not going to be all fun, all the time (my father likes to say, “It’s called ‘work’ for a reason—if it wasn’t work, they’d call it ‘vacation’”).
But the most successful students we work with at Collegewise have subjects, interests, and activities that light them up when they talk about them. They amplify those things that make them happy. And while they want their chores done and behind them, for everything else, they’re looking forward to the next time.