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                 It’s that time of year again. When application deadlines approach and all of the seniors slowly figure out where they have been accepted to go to college. Every night on Facebook, there is a status about admissions and the stresses of filling out an application. Amongst the anxiety of applying to colleges, a pattern has emerged at Fossil Ridge High School. In the past three years, certain schools have become popular for the graduating class to apply to. Before going into Fossil’s statistics, let’s look at the nationwide list for schools with the most applications sent in each year.

                The number one school that receives the most applicants is the University of California – Los Angeles. UCLA receives on average 61,545 applications and usually only accepts a quarter of that number as their freshman class. Nestled in one of the biggest metropolitan areas in all of America, as well as being renowned for producing politicians, Academy award winning actors, and a good basketball team, it makes sense why so many students choose to apply to this school (http://www.ucla.edu/admissions/). Among UCLA, some other top schools for number of applications are: St. John’s University in Queens, New York, University of California –Berkeley,University of California –Santa Barbara, Drexel University in Philadelphia, and University of California – San Diego.

                So how does Fossil compare with the national statistics? Since our town of Fort Collins houses a university, it is no surprise that Colorado State University is the school that Fossil students apply to the most based on the list I was given from the career center of schools that people were applying to. This list isn’t entirely accurate because it is only based on the information that students entered into Naviance about where they were applying to. According to this list, there are 205 students applying to CSU. Many students like CSU because “of all the towns and cities I’ve been to, I’ve found it doesn’t get better then Fort Collins,” said senior Connor Murphy, who is interested in studying Fisheries Biology, a program that CSU thrives in.  Senior Alexis Opper notes that the campus is also very ideal. “Everything is so compact and you don’t need a car if you go to CSU because you can get everywhere so easily,” she said.  “It is a lot cheaper to stay in state and Colorado is a great state, probably the best. CSU is affordable, a good school, has a nice campus, a good guy to girl ratio, and has a killer fisheries program,” Murphy adds.

                Forty-five minutes away is the next popular school for Fossil seniors: University of Colorado–Boulder. There are 119 students applying to CU from this graduating class and one of the perks of this school is the distance from Fort Collins. “I could not stay in Fort Collins. CSU is the last school I want to go to,” senior Caleb Gustin said.  Jessica Petty, senior, also agreed. “CU is far enough away, but still close enough to visit home on the weekends,” she said, “and the buildings are really pretty and it is near the mountains.” Both of the students interviewed about CU were interested in CU’s strong engineering program. “I liked how many of the staff in their engineering department know what they are talking about and some of them are even Nobel Prize winners,” Gustin, who is interested in mechanical and biomedical engineering, pointed out. CU is also stereotyped as being a “hippie” school, which doesn’t worry Gustin at all. “Hippies are awesome. I wear Birkenstocks and socks all the time, so I feel like I would fit in there,” he said. To sum it up, “Boulder is really cool,” said Petty.

                So what about out of state schools? The most popular out of state college, receiving 42 applications from Fossil seniors, is University of Wyoming. The second most popular out of state college is Montana State University, Bozeman, with 33 applicants. “These schools are popular because of cost. Plus these schools are both really good at sending out applications to students, so their recruiting systems are really good. They both have really good packages for affordability,” said Diane Campbell, the college and career counselor at Fossil. To help with affordability, University of Wyoming is a part of the Western Exchange Program (WUE). WUE at Wyoming means that qualifying students from other participating WUE states will receive tuition to that of about 150% of resident tuition (http://www.uwyo.edu/admissions/scholarships/non-residents/wue.html.) Students who are applying to this school are interested in experiencing something other than Colorado. “I wanted to go to an out of state school, because I know how great Colorado is, I just feel like I need something to compare it to,” said senior Annie Layden. Similarly, senior Girik Ranchod adds, “I want to travel and visit a lot of places before I settle in one place.” One of the downsides about University of Wyoming is the town, but Layden says the campus provides a lot of events to participate in. “The theater puts on a lot of productions and the school brings in musical acts like the Black Eyed Peas,” said Layden.

               Montana State University also holds the appeal of being out of state without being too unfamiliar. “Bozeman is really similar to Fort Collins without actually being Fort Collins,” senior Amy Pape said. Senior Trevor Quintana likes that Bozeman is more of a college town than Fort Collins is. “Most of the shops are family owned, and all of them have ‘MSU’ stickers on the windows. Everyone seems to be MSU fans,” he said. “They have a good food and nutrition program, the people were super welcoming, and the campus is gorgeous with all of the mountains” are a few more things that Pape loves about MSU. “MSU is one of those schools for many students that once they visit, they can’t imagine going anywhere else,” said Campbell.

                To check out the most popular school nationwide go to:  http://collegeprowler.com/rankings/overall-experience/top-most-applicants-per-year/