It’s a beautiful sight: the green checks lined up next to each other on the online Common App form, all of your supplements turned in and the most stressful part of high school just about over.

Hopefully, just about every senior has had this experience. The first semester of senior year, for me and most seniors, was filled with college applications: essay-writing, questionnaire-answering and form-filling.

My own college application process has been mixed. I applied to three schools in the Early Action pool (Georgetown, the University of Chicago and the University of North Carolina), and I’ve been deferred from the first two and was recently accepted to the third.

For those who might not know, being deferred means that my application was rejected from the early application pool and moved to the regular application pool, with a final decision coming in April instead of December. While it doesn’t mean I won’t get in to those two schools eventually, it was certainly a bit demoralizing.

Actually, I’ll be honest—it was pretty devastating. Georgetown and UChicago were in many ways my ideal colleges, and while I did get in someplace else, the two deferrals within one week were quite the rude awakening.

However, while it’s been both positive and negative, this process has taught me a few things I wish I had known before starting entirely.

First, start early. This was my downfall. After I finished my early applications, I took a “break” until I didn’t get into those early schools—and then I had to scramble in the last week of school and over winter break to get enough applications done in time for the regular admission deadlines.

If you can get a good number of applications done before winter break starts (more than five), you’ll be in a good place and not have to stress over the break or during the beginning of the second semester. And if you’re feeling maniacal, you can sit back and watch the frantic Facebook statuses go up around 11:30 on the night of each deadline.

Something I think I did well, and that I hope you take my advice on, was seeking help from my counselor and the guidance department. I was able to sort things like transcript requests out with both my guidance counselor and Ann LePage, the college counselor, and I was able to go to them if I had any questions.

The college process is long and can be intimidating, but if you use the resources you’ve got—the guidance office and the College and Career Center—you’ll be able to keep everything in order and get everything done on time.

The last thing to keep in mind, for both seniors finishing the process and juniors just beginning it, is that nothing is the end of the world and nothing  in the college application process defines you. I’ll admit—it took me a while to realize this, but once I did, the whole process went a lot more smoothly.

If you don’t get into a college that you wanted to, it doesn’t mean your future is over. If one interview doesn’t go so well, your chances for a college aren’t over.

One of the things that “they” tell people during the college process is that “you’ll be happy no matter where you end up.” I didn’t believe this for the longest time, but I’ve realized that every college has something for everyone and it won’t be hard to have the time of your life at any number of places.

For the seniors finishing the process: I hope it hasn’t gone too badly for you and that you’ve been able to have fun throughout senior year at the same time.

For the juniors who will be starting it soon: plan things out, take a deep breath and start early. It can be rewarding or discouraging, but it all depends on what you make of it. You’re going to be fine.