High school seniors: breathe easy.

Although it feels like an eternity away, in about ten days all of your decisions will have been received. By May 1st, you will make a decision about where you want to go to college.

This waiting should be the easy part. You have dedicated four, maybe even five, years of your life to perfecting your transcript, to racking up perfect extracurriculars, and to hundreds of volunteer hours. If you're anything like me, you've been running on coffee and fumes for the past several months. You deserve a break.

I'm sure many of you, as I did, are combing Reddit, College Confidential, and any admissions blog you can possibly find. STOP.

This wait between the final click of the "submit" button on January 1st and the final click of the "view application status update" button feels like it will never end, and inspecting those sites worsens the fear with every anxiety-ridden moment. It doesn't help you.

But it's going to end. And it's going to happen within a week or so.

You have earned the right to a place at every institution you've applied to. However, keep in mind that almost every applicant applying to the same schools is just as qualified as you are. The admissions game is a tricky one: if one admissions officer in a sour mood in one quick glance decides that they don't love one tiny aspect of your application, that piece of paper that cannot accurately represent who you truly are, it does not reflect on your qualifications. It doesn't reflect on your successes, and it doesn't represent a failure. Most importantly, it doesn't make you less deserving as a person.

You have done everything that you can do.

I'm a firm believer that things happen as they are supposed to. Maybe at your dream school, you wouldn't have met your best friend for the rest of your life. Maybe you would have been miserable buried under mounds of schoolwork. Maybe you'll absolutely excel elsewhere.

If you've been rejected:

Remember that tiny piece of paper, your application? Tear it up in your head. A couple of short-response questions and your test scores don't reflect your personality or your intellect. They don't reflect how you might make your friends laugh until they cry; they don't reflect how kind you might be to those around you; they don't reflect how persistent you might in the face of failure. An application reads at the same level as "judging a book by its cover." You are more than any number of college rejections.

Song suggestions: Forget You (CeeLo Green), Shake It Out (Florence + The Machine), Unwritten (Natasha Bedingfield), I Won't Back Down (Tom Petty), Here Comes the Sun (The Beatles)

If you've been accepted:

Don't feel guilty about being accepted. You, just like your peers, have absolutely earned your spot in your upcoming college class. You should be absolutely over the moon. However, be cognizant that there are people who worked just as hard and didn't receive the same exciting news that you did. Congratulations!!

Song suggestions: Best Day of My Life (American Authors), We Are The Champions (Queen), Walking On Sunshine (Katrina & The Waves), Hall of Fame (The Script), I Gotta Feeling (The Black Eyed Peas)

For those of you still waiting:

Fill your time with something that you love doing.

For me, that's baking chocolate chip cookies, doing yoga, and singing.

For you, that might be a DIY spa night, playing your favorite sport, dancing the stress out, going on a hike, writing, having a picnic with your best friends, or watching a movie with your family.

Whatever it is, do it. Even the small things will help take your mind off of it for a while.

And remember, you are bigger than a rejection.