As February rolls in, more and more students are figuring out their future plans. But for the more unfortunate students, the first of April is the day they await. Unless students applied to college on Early Decision or Early Action, this is the most common notification date for universities.

One MST senior, Oriana Ngo, anxiously waits to hear from multiple dream schools, including Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, and Northwestern. “I feel like all my friends know where they’re going and I have zero clue. I’m trying to put it in the back of my mind but I’m so excited for college it’s hard to do that,” she said.

Some select colleges, such as University of Alabama, Drexel University, UNC Chapel Hill, and many other schools, have an online site that allows prospective students to check their admission and/or application status. This way, students can get a better idea of when they will know the school’s decision. Some schools even post their exact decision to these sites. For any universities that don’t, students are left waiting right up until April 1.

Waiting four extra months for college letters can have some disadvantages; students who don’t make a definite, quick choice are left wondering about what may be a life-changing decision.

Another anxious senior, Nick Uhlenhuth, is also waiting for decisions from a number of schools, including Yale, Harvard, MIT, and Stanford. Uhlenhuth says he is continuing his usual study habits this year, but that it’s more for pride than impressing colleges, since second semester grades have much less of an impact than first semester grades, which do play a part in admission decisions. Uhlenhuth is also affected knowing that many of his peers know which schools have already admitted them. “I’m glad so many of my peers have already been accepted into great colleges. I just wish I knew by now so I could relax a bit,” he said.