Ready to make one of the most important decisions of your life? Then get ready to submit your first college application! This comprehensive step-by-step essay will guide you in beginning your journey to higher education: the college application.

    Since you live in Texas, you will first need to register for an ApplyTexas account. This is the one account you will use to submit all of your college application for public institutions in Texas. Next, you will need to complete your personal information for you account so schools know who you are when you apply. This portion of the application is one of the most important so you may want to spend some time on this to make sure you have entered everything correctly the first time. After you finish that, you will need to start an application for your first choice of college. You need to specify which kind of application you will be completing and make sure to select the correct school in which you are applying to. When this is finished, you will begin to enter your unique information on the profile. You must first start with the biographical information which indicates what kind of student is applying to the college. After you enter your name and other personal information, you must answer a few questions about your family to give the institution some required contact and financial information about your family. If you are unsure about any of these questions, do not hesitate to ask your parents for assistance. You are not expected to know all of the financial information so it’s okay to ask for help on this section.

    Next, you will need to enter your educational background information. This includes what schools you attended and all the college credit you will have received by your high school graduation. If you are a college transfer student with fewer than 20 hours of transferable credit, you will need to include your high school information as well as any past or current institutions you have attended. After this is completed, the application requires you to enter your educational information in the spaces provided. This will include all the classes you’re currently taking and all dual credit classes that will accredit you hours at graduation. The next section is the testing information which requires you to enter the most recent date you took or will take the SAT or ACT. These exams are required to be admitted to any public university or college so you cannot skip this section. If needed, you may login to your College Board account to view any official scores from tests you have taken in the past. If you do not have access to this account, you may also ask your guidance counselor for this information as they have it on your student record. This may take some time to complete so you may return to this section later if you are unsure about your scores.

    You will then complete the residency section which will have you answer a few basic questions about your living history. These questions will take you only a few minutes to answer.

    The extracurricular activities portion of the application is the part that will stand out the most. If you have kept track of a journal with all of your activities, you will need to transfer them to the application. Make sure to include how much time you spend on each activity. You are able to send a paper version as well as the required digital copy so you may want to consider that if you feel you need the extra space. This section is really technical so be patient in filling it out as this will most likely be the longest part to fill out.

    After you feel you have included all your activities, you now need to enter all the volunteer activities you served. These are important as well so spend as much time as you need on this section.

    You will then complete the talents and awards section of the application that will list all of your accomplishments from your high school career. This can include all advances in UIL, competitions, pageants, sports, etc. Again, having a list can benefit you in this section. This should take some time to complete so feel free to come back later if you can’t remember everything.

    Then, you will need to add any work experience you’ve had while you were in high school to show if you are able to balance more than just academia in your life. You may need to contact previous employers for some of the information so feel free to return to this later.

    After certifying you have submitted truthful and accurate answers, you will need to look over your application to review it for mistakes or fill in any incomplete sections. You are then prompted to submit any essays that are required by the selected university or college. These may be copy and pasted into the text fields for the best results.

    You will then be asked to pay the application fee for your selected college so make sure to have your credit card ready. After paying and receiving confirmation of payment, you will be asked to do one final review before submission. Once you’ve looked over your application and it appears to accurately reflect your information, then go ahead and click submit!

    Wow! You just succeeded in completing your first ever college application! If you later find that you need to make adjustments to the application, you will need to contact the institution directly for any changes to be made. ApplyTexas will not accept requests for any sort of changes to your submitted application.

    Make sure to keep up with your admission status by registering online with the school directly in the future.