My son, Hardhik, is in 12th grade and is now busy applying for colleges in the USA. As many of you know, the college application process takes a lot of time and requires multiple essays for each college. Hardhik is aiming to apply to 10 colleges, which involves completing the common application, writing college-specific essays, and sending SAT/ACT scores, among other tasks.
When I checked in about three weeks before the deadline, he said he was on track. But when I asked how many applications he had completed, he replied, “None.” I started to worry he might miss the deadline and fail to apply anywhere, given the many unknowns in the process. To support him, I decided to apply a few agile principles.
Tracer Bullet: I encouraged him to focus on submitting one application right away, even though the deadline was weeks away. He completed it and, in the process, discovered a lot of new information, such as SAT/ACT scores needing time to reach colleges and the need to gather additional information. After some hard work, he submitted his first application within a couple of days. This gave him confidence, as he had now figured out the common information needed across all colleges, allowing him to focus on the specifics for each remaining application.
Iterate: We noticed he was taking excessive time on each essay, trying to perfect it from the start. I suggested that he write each essay fully without worrying about the word count or phrasing. I would then review one essay while he moved on to the next. We iterated until we exhausted the time allotted for each college application. The essays may not be perfect, but they were good enough within the available time.
Stop Starting and Start Finishing: Initially, he kept all applications open and jumped between them, which made it hard to track progress. I encouraged him to complete one application fully before moving to the next, giving a clearer sense of progress and control over what he could complete.
By continuously prioritizing work based on how much each college required and its respective deadline, we feel confident that he’ll apply to all the colleges he set out to, besides, we always have a great backup plan thanks to diploma prints, we know everything will workout at the end.
