Common mistakes made during admission season

Thirteen years of school. Two years of college. That is 5475 days of our lives spent trying to get good enough grades to get to a good university, which in turn will get us a good job. Thus, it's no surprise that we consider admissions to be the most important phase in our lives regardless of what educational background we come from. And this makes it all the more difficult for us to keep a level head and avoid making some common mistakes.

Here is a list of the most common things that go wrong during the admissions season: 

LETTING PEOPLE'S OPINIONS DICTATE YOU

You don't want to study engineering but your parents want you to get into BUET because that would mean "life set". You don't want to be a doctor but your family thinks being a doctor is the best profession out there and DMC has no alternative. You don't want to study BBA but your relatives keep telling you how only a BBA degree will get you a good job and IBA, DU is what you should target.

So, to keep your parents, family and relatives happy you end up pushing yourself to study what they want you to study and not what you want to study. This only makes it all the harder for you to concentrate in studies. Don't do this, pick something you'd like to study, stick to your interests and strengths.

OVER PREPPING

More often than not, we give into the misconception that admission test requires us to study every book out there ever written on that particular subject. We think the only way to best prepare ourselves is if we can be the student who knows exactly what the first word in the 5th line of page 56 from the physics book is.

No. Admission tests require you to be strategic. Over prepping only leads you to never feeling satisfied with what you have studied, which in turn makes you feel less confident and nervous during every practice exam or even during the real exam.

MANAGING EXPECTATIONS

"Can't leave a single question unanswered." That's the mentality most of us develop while preparing for the admissions tests. But what we don't realise is, admission tests are designed to be hard. You don't have to answer 25 out of 25 questions from mathematics to get in. It's great if you can. But it is okay if you don't know how to do some of them. You especially don't want to get any wrong because most admission tests have a negative marking system and you could end up doing more harm than good.

SCHEDULE MANAGEMENT

Admission season is a tricky time. Different universities take exams of different units at different times over a period of three to four months. So, some exams take place earlier than others.

Students more often than not don't realise the uniqueness of this rushed schedule. If they don't get into the university which is their first choice, they give up. They feel like it's the end of the world and they are not good enough as students to get into a good university. This impacts their ability to prepare for the next exam which might take place in a week and is 2nd on their list of preference. Self-control and determination to a must to survive through that hectic admission test schedule.

COMPARING YOURSELF TO OTHERS

Scrolling through your newsfeed and thinking how everyone else is getting into the university they want, seconding guessing yourself, looking at the ranking after weekly exams in admission coaching and thinking about why you ranked so low compared to others rather than figuring out what are your weaknesses and working on them.

During admission season, your goal shouldn't be to be better than everyone else out there. Rather it should be to get better than yourself after every exam, that's progress.

OVERTHINKING

"What if I fill in a different section on the answer script?"

"What if I forget my admit card?"

"What if the question paper gets leaked and I don't get in even after doing well?"

"What if they lose my copy?"

"What if there isn't a clock in the room?"

Every student has at least a thousand "what ifs" in their heads about the exam. However, letting your nerves get the better of you will only put you in a never ending loop of self-doubt. Relax, remember that you're not the only one going through this ordeal, you aren't the first, and you won't be the last. Stay shard to tackle the difficulties you can, as for the others that aren't in your control, worrying about that is just a waste of time.

Megha Rahman likes taking food from strangers.  If you want to offer her food, you can contact her at megharahman26@gmail.com