College Goals Keep Students’ Holidays Busy

Lounging at a snow-capped villa in Sweden would have been nice, but Eleanor Kuntz, 16, gave it up to stay home and perfect her college applications over the winter break.

Horacio Durazo, 17, will have dropped about $200--much of his savings--on application fees to seven universities by next month. Along with college applications, Durazo said he’ll have to spend his free time submitting financial aid forms.

“I can’t wait until this will be all over,” said Durazo, a Santa Ana High School senior applying to Georgetown, New York University, UC Berkeley and other top schools.

For many high school seniors, the winter break can be the most grueling period in their lives as they polish and mail the last round of college applications.

The initial college crunch began in October when students applying to the University of California and California State University, and to other schools with early-decision programs, scurried to meet the November and December deadlines.

But many aiming to enter college next fall are now mustering a second wind to complete their applications before January and February due dates.

“The big rush ended in November,” said Santa Ana High School Assistant Principal Elsa Galvan. “But the stress is still lingering because they not only have to worry about college applications but also scholarships and loans.”

That means little time for fun over the standard two-week winter break, which ends Jan. 5 at most schools.

“It’s a drawn-out process,” said Kuntz, a senior at Irvine’s University High who applied to two UC campuses and is finishing applications to out-of-state schools. “It starts in November and doesn’t end until February.”

And these days, students say, most seniors shoot for admission to about five colleges. The paperwork--many college applications include several forms to fill out and personal essays--can seem endless.

At University High, where typically 60% of graduates go on to four-year colleges, a competitive climate pushes students to work hard to impress college admissions boards.

But Kuntz said she frowns on the cutthroat attitude among students at her school. “People are so concerned about your grades on your transcript,” she said. “Everyone’s going through it. We’re all in the same boat.”

Santa Ana High senior Mike Cruz thought he was free from application stress--until the University of California returned his forms and those of five of his classmates because they were incomplete.

Santa Ana High and 57 other schools were part of a UC pilot program called Pathways, which allows students to electronically apply to any of the system’s nine campuses via the Internet. Cruz and the five others at his school e-mailed their applications on time last month, but because of undetermined technical problems, sections of their applications were erased during the transmission.

Apparently only Santa Ana High students encountered the problem, UC admissions officials said. The data that the admissions office did receive is being processed but the students were asked to refile the missing materials by mail.

Without a home computer, Cruz said, he must wait until he returns to school after the break to finalize his packet and get his counselor to review it. “Then I’ll be free,” said Cruz, who emigrated from Mexico three years ago to live with two older brothers in Orange County. He will be the first in his family to attend a four-year college.

Durazo, another Santa Ana High senior affected by the computer glitch, said the mishap doubled his stress, even though he would prefer to leave California to explore other states. He has several weeks before he must send out his out-of-state applications, but the optimal time to complete them is during vacation, he said.

Hunched over his typewriter in his bedroom, he works late into the night on applications.

His self-reliance sometimes wears thin. “Not a lot of the kids [at school] share my similar interests,” he said, shuffling through papers on his dining room table and a wooden desk near the family room, his two home “workstations.”

“Some of them are settling for less and they’re not motivated. Sometimes it affects me and I wonder why I’m doing this or whether I’m good enough for these schools,” he said.

Doubts and looming uncertainties about the future also plague Kuntz. She had planned to catch up on her sleep during the first part of her holidays. (In order to graduate in June, a year early, Kuntz this semester is juggling six honors and advanced-placement classes, a course at a community college, two part-time jobs and ballet lessons three times a week.)

To meet upcoming deadlines, she plasters Post-it notes with reminders and dates all over her college booklets.

The draining experience forced her to postpone a trip to Sweden until summer.

Eager for these agonizing weeks to pass, Kuntz said she doesn’t necessarily look forward to spring break either. Anxiety will then return, this time in anticipation of acceptance or rejection letters.

“There’s not much time to recuperate,” she said with a giggle.