It’s that time of year again. College applications have been released and college tour season is in full swing. Hundreds of thousands of high school seniors, juniors, and even sophomores are being accompanied by their parents on college tours across the country. Before the holiday season is in full swing, the nearly 2.5 million high school seniors across America will have anxiously submitted their applications to their dream schools, their reach schools, and their safety schools. This is an exciting, bittersweet beginning on the road to independence. Here’s my advice to ensure that journey is a smooth ride.

1. Do not tour a college campus when the students are on break.

You miss out on so much of the culture of a university when you fail to see students walking on campus. Ignore the rankings and the statistics for a minute. Your goal should be to find a campus you can picture yourself walking around as a student, grabbing a coffee between classes, studying with friends in the library, and screaming in the stands on gamedays. Take a second to look around at the student body and see if this campus is place you could blend into.

2. Ignore USA Today’s Rankings list.

Seriously. I’m not kidding. First of all, how much of a difference do you think there is between college #1 and #2? If you said 0.00001%, you were right. Secondly, who gives a flip if you went to college #99 or #100? By the time you graduate, the rankings will have fluctuated again and they will not resemble the ones upon which you based your college choice. More importantly, future employers will value the skills you bring to the table over a couple sentences on your resume.

3. Take some initiative.

If you are meeting with an admissions officer, look at the school website. Be familiar with the basic statistics of the school and have some questions prepared. This is your future, you need to take control. Please do not be the student whose parents ask all the questions.

4. Think about what kind of degree makes sense for you.

Or even if getting a degree makes sense for you. A four year degree does not make sense for everyone career-wise and/or financially. Not everyone is designed to sit through four more years of classes and work a 9 to 5 job. A 2 year degree or vocational training is simply what makes sense for everyone.

5. Be realistic.

Seriously. I implore you and encourage you to apply to challenging schools that are a reach for you, but don’t ONLY apply to schools where the acceptance rate is smaller than the chance of Donald Trump not building a wall. You are doing yourself no favors by doing this. Apply to at least two schools where you are well within the admissions profile of an admitted student. You cannot fathom how relieving it is to know you applied to schools that you can get into and have options within that category. I hate to break it you, but if you are a B+ student with a blatant disregard for school rules who has not cured cancer, Harvard is not the institute for you.

6. Please don’t apply to school you know you and/or your family cannot afford.

Crippling student debt is a serious issue and you cannot declare bankruptcy on student loans. No matter how much Mom and Dad love you, it is simply not fair for you to ask them to take out a second mortgage to pay for your education. If your parents have not discussed what college costs are feasibly affordable, it is time to act like the young adult you are and approach the subject with them.

7. On that note, apply for scholarships even if you aren’t solely responsibly for financing your own education.

If your parents are able and willing to contribute to your college education, this is awesome and they deserve a huge thank you. However, this does not mean you can skip applying for scholarships. Fun fact, this is YOUR education.

8. Look at the faces of the students at the college you’re touring.

What emotion is displayed upon their faces? How are they carrying themselves? Chances are if the majority of the student has undereye bags resembling a raccoon, premature spinal issues from overloaded backpacks, and frowns that rival crescent moons, you will end up in their shoes. Search for an environment where students are proud to sport t-shirts with the school logo, where they stop to admire the beauty of their campus, and where they appear to be to enjoying themselves. The reason colleges try to sell “the college experience” is because the next 4 years of your life are exactly that: an experience. They are a balance between long hours spent studying at the library and long laughs with your best friends.

9. Try not to take a college rejection personally.

Trust me, I know how badly it stings. Probably even more than you expected it too. I know how many hours you spent daydreaming about walking across luscious, picturesque college quads, scouring the depths of youtube for dorm tours, and perfecting your application in order to optimize your chance of acceptance. By the time you click ‘submit’ on your application, you have poured your heart and soul, your blood, your sweat, your tears, and your sanity into a dozen page electronic form that an admissions officer will glance over for a matter of minutes, if that. At the end of the day, the admissions officer who read your application is not trying to ruin your life, they do not hate you, and they do not want you to be miserable. They are simply trying to get through thousands of applications in a matter of weeks to admit students whom they feel are the best possible fit for their institution. If that’s not you, I’m sorry. I truly am. But you will be accepted into a school who realizes you are the perfect student for them and they are the perfect university for you. It will all work out, I promise.

10. Finally, it is okay to experience a flood of emotions throughout the college application process.

It is okay to experience an absolute lack of emotions throughout the college application process. It is okay to have no idea what the heck you are feeling throughout the college application process. We all have a friend who grinding their teeth and pulling out their hair over the stress of college applications and we all have a friend who has known where they will be attending college since their mother brought them into world. Most of us fall somewhere on the spectrum between those two situations, but my point is that we all fall somewhere upon it. College applications signal the transition from dependency into independence and everyone reacts to this in their own manner. Just do you.