It’s your senior year and you’re stressed out. The time has finally come for you to try to map out your future and what you’ve dreaded and held off for so long (college applications, majors, careers, college visits) is finally right in front of your face, vying for your attention.

All of your classmates feel the same way and are hustling to get in their college apps as well. Suddenly you too feel the rush and the pressure and it becomes a competition. Can I get in a better college than everyone else? Who can send in more college apps? Are my scores/GPA higher than everybody else’s? Who’s ranked first in our class?

Everyone around you is pressuring you and interrogating you on what your plans are. Frankly, you don’t have an answer and would rather just tune them out and hide in a hole where all your worries and realities evaporate. While it may seem like your future is in jeopardy now, the end results of your apps aren’t going to determine your life success. Yes, college and everything that comes with it is scary and intimidating, but I’m here to tell you that regardless of where you end up at the end of the application process, you can still do what you want. Don’t believe me? Allow me to elaborate.

I feel like this is something we all struggle with (I know for sure that I do): People establish unreasonable expectations and set themselves up for disappointment particularly in college apps where, as hard as it may be to believe, it doesn’t matter as much as everybody thinks it does. In fact, it doesn’t just occur in college apps but in many of the things we do. We take those standardized tests and don’t get the score we want. We participate in a competition and don’t place. We apply to a college we really want to go to and don’t get accepted.

Obviously, applying for colleges brings along stress whether it be from high expectations we set for ourself or the pressure we receive to try and make our parents proud by getting into the best colleges in the nation. And the application process can lead to a whole lot of disappointment.

But why stress yourself out over something that doesn’t really matter?

The truth of the matter is you can still pursue your career, be it a teacher, scientist, doctor or anything in between, whether you get into your dream college or not.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t set goals or that you shouldn’t try and exceed your expectations, but rather that you should view situations with a realistic outlook and be aware of the situation at hand. There’s a fine line between expecting too little and expecting too much to the point that you become disappointed. In other words, don’t expect such high, unattainable goals or else you’ll most likely be discouraged if you don’t succeed. If the outcome is not what you wanted, don’t be disheartened. Persist through your goals, don’t worry about where you’re at, especially in comparison to others and you’ll be able to achieve your goals.