Yeah, I know how you feel, I took 5 AP classes last year too, that was sure fun come AP test time… Anyway, to your question. I don’t know that you will be able to avoid the pressure, I would concentrate more on getting through it. I would really suggest that you look up all the deadlines for the colleges you’re applying to now, and figure out how long in advance you need to have that ready to mail (your parents will not be happy if they to express mail your college applications b/c you waited until the last second). Ask for letters of recommendation as soon as possible so your teachers will have plenty of time to write them. You mentioned you’re in sports, be sure to get a letter of rec from your coach, as well as from any club sponsors you may have. Try writing a draft of your college essay now, even if it’s the worst thing you ever read in your life. It’s good to at least have a starting place, no matter how bad it is. You can probably use the same essay for all or at least some of the colleges you’re applying to, that should save you some time. Just be sure that if you mention anything college-specific in there to change it for each one. Try doing the online Common Application (https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/default.aspx) for all the colleges that you can, it will save you a lot of time in filling out the same information over and over again. Try to do something college-related every weekend. On weeknights, put your classes before college application stuff (unless it’s due the next day or something). You should still have some time left over to work on college stuff or just to relax after you do your homework, if not, you have some other problems, and you may need to downgrade a class. Just try to concentrate on what needs to be done, and just do it, don’t worry about how you’re going to do it. Get your essays checked by your English teacher and other people. Do your best. Try to have fun sometimes. You will survive.

Gosh, no. Luckily I only had three college applications to do, and a total of five essays. I had to submit two of those applications before Christmas break, so I had to spend my entire Thanksgiving break–4 days–working on those applications. And then I had to spend another day in December on one of my weekends, entirely devoting it to applications. Then I pretty much had my act together and was able to do my last application in one day during the winter break. Despite all the pressure, though, I still got in everywhere I applied. Some of my friends had to spend a whole week during their Christmas break writing applications and application essays, since they all had 5+ applications to write.

I probably would have gotten started sooner than November if I had not had so many AP classes to deal with, and then some extracurricular activities to boot, or if I had known that I was going to nominated scholarshipsm which meant earlier deadlines (otherwise, all the applications would have been due in January, so I could have just mailed them in during the first week of January after writing them during the holidays).

How do you get by with only having one college essay? I still got stuck with 5, even though I only applied to three institutions.

Don’t listen to the person above me who said you can just write a college essay between classes–it took me about a day and a half per essay to make sure that it was PERFECT.

Actually, it really only matters that you meet the deadline, unless you are applying to any rolling admissions schools. Then, you want to apply as early as possible, so that you know there will still be space for you in the class.

You sound like my school’s valedictorian. Maybe my school is trashy, but we only have 1-2 people per year that take lots of AP AND do sports.

College applications aren’t terribly difficult. Write an essay or two during downtime in one of your classes, show them to your english teacher for revision that same day, and maybe one or two friends, and those are done. Unless you’re applying to like ten colleges with different essays (which you don’t need to do if you’re taking 5ap classes and do sports).

I turned my applications in a few weeks before they were due (don’t ever wait till the last 2 weeks – instant bad). Just remember that the more work you get done during class, the less work you have to do elsewhere. If you find yourself bored at any point in one class, pull out work from the previous period and finish it. If theres none to do, work on college essays or whatever you need. Just dont forget to socialize!