Tomorrow is the PSAT, Friday is the end of the nine weeks, and soon every other 17-year-old will be knee deep in college applications.

I know some of you have had dream schools that you’ve been striving for since the second grade. I know most of you have parents that will shun you if you don’t maintain a 4.0 and get into a good college and study biochemistry and do a million other things. It’s all so much, and college is just one more thing to get lost in. While daunting, it doesn’t have to be the end of the world.

First of all, college is not the epitome of your life, it may be the epitome of your adolescent years, but your life? No. Even if it were you still shouldn’t kill yourself trying to get in. After all, there are plenty of good colleges in the country. Why should you break your back setting your sights on just one when you could spread your hopes out more evenly?

I think we all should keep this in mind. While we look for colleges, while we take the SAT, and while we drown ourselves in schoolwork, we need to remember that we have options.

This may seem like an abstract idea that sounds nice but isn’t really applicable but think about it in relation to your own dreams. Just like most of us, I bet UT is a dream school. I think just about every other Texan has that in their top five. As Texans, it makes sense due to its financial appeal. Going to a school in the same state is much cheaper, but what else about UT is so appealing that you can’t settle on anything else? There are so many good schools out there, many of them you could still get with in-state tuition. And listen, I am in no way trying to rat on a good school like UT, afterall my mom went there, but all I’m saying is that there are many other options.

There are 5,300 universities in this country. Sure, not all of them are worth considering, but out of that many options you’re bound to find something. There’s so much out there, but a lot of us just haven’t realized it yet. If a lot of the stress about college comes from not knowing what’s out there, or only knowing what your friends and family tell you about, then take some time to familiarize yourself. Just the other day I went to the Princeton Review to look something up and was amazed by all the resources they had. They had college ranks, what it’ll take to get into each, and a personal grade of each. Here’s what I found: there are a lot of A+ schools.

So now that we’re aware of the possibilities, let’s talk about exploring them. This is where a lot of us hold back. We don’t want to leave home, even though we’ve spent our entire lives counting down the days. In the end, when it’s time to go, we inevitably want to stay. It’s only natural that we don’t want to give up the relative safety and familiarity we’ve always known, it’s the same reason that “nearly 72 percent of Americans live in or close to the city where they grew up.”

With in-state tuition making it even more difficult to leave, it seems so many of us will stay in the same corner we were born in. While that is completely ok, keep in mind that the decision to stay or go will set the bounds of the rest of your life. Sure, the possibilities are endless, but only if you explore them. I know that not much of what I’ve said is earth-shattering, but still, so much of it will be lost on us when the time comes to make the big decision. When that time comes, if it already hasn’t, remember your options.