Every senior should be starting to feel the college application fever. Many have started looking for colleges and filling out applications. Here are some helpful hints to use.

First, figure out at least 4-5 colleges that you want to go to. Don’t be afraid to look at out of state colleges because of their tuition price, there is financial help available. One organization is the Western Undergraduate Exchange or known as WUE. Instead of paying the full out of state tuition you pay only a little bit more than in-state tuition. For example, if in-state tuition costs 2,000 dollars you would be paying only 4,000 dollars per year instead of the out of state tuition which could be 10,000 dollars or more.

Second, you should try to sell yourself in every application. They want to know why they should accept you into their school. Tell them every single good detail about you or what you have done in the past. They want you to boast and brag about yourself.

The third and final thing is not getting discouraged because you might be a little short of the college requirements. They only have three options to choose from. First they could reject you. Second, they could accept you anyways and have you make up classes there or they might put you into academic probation. Overall they will tell you what you need to get done to be able to go there because they really do want you to be part of their school. So seniors, the rest is up to you. Don’t sit there, go fill out some applications!

    In the United States teenagers look forward to driving and drinking when they turn twenty one. Yet Mr. Burnett, who lived in the Netherlands as a teen,  grew up a little differently; where trust, responsibility, and freedom were the norm.
    Mr. Burnett, a native of Washington D.C., moved to the Netherlands during his sophomore year in high school because his father was a professor and Mr. Burnett’s father was part of the Full Bright Exchange Program, which allowed Mr. Burnett’s father to exchange with a professor in the University of Amsterdam, so he did. Mr. Burnett recalls the moment when he and his family first arrived in Amsterdam, “Oh, I remember getting off the boat and we decided to go to the café and they were playing [the song] ‘If you’re going to San Francisco’, it reminded me a little bit of home and of course I was looking around because everything looked so different.”
    “European schools are much more strict and they have higher expectations than here in the United States” said Mr. Burnett “How do I know?, from experience”. Here in California high school sophomores are expected to pass the CAHSEE (an exam that tests your knowledge from middle school and only one year of high school) in order to graduate, “The CAHSEE is ridiculous, in Germany in order to graduate you have to pass a big exam, it’s longer than the finals at Stanford and a part of it is an oral essay in four different subjects” and of course Mr. Burnett passed that “big exam” because he went on to the University of Hamburg.
    In California teens can drive as long as they have a permit or a license, but in Germany you cannot drive until you are eighteen “It’s much more thorough and costs more too, to get your license” says Mr. Burnett. The legal drinking age in Germany is sixteen and drinking isn’t a big deal in Germany, “It’s more common for teens to just go out to clubs with friends” comments Mr. Burnett, “and in Europe teens just look forward to traveling around Europe than anything else”.
    “Teenagers are teenagers they like to talk on their cell phones, listen to music, they like the internet, they like to party, and they like to go to the movies” Mr. Burnett also went on to say that teenagers in Europe have more freedom, they have more places to go and hang out, and that it’s much safer. Mr. Burnett concluded by saying that the experience helped him learn to be circumspect and to look at the world, not only through eyes of an American, but also through other cultures eyes.

                                              -Staff Reporter Simon Mercado