Recently I spoke with a high school freshman who attended a college fair. He told me how overwhelmed he was by all the options and decisions that are ahead. He’s a freshman, he doesn’t have to make any decisions yet, but he was already overwhelmed. I have spoken with parents of juniors and seniors who are intimidated by the process and sometimes we deal with intimidation by putting things off. The best advice I can give you is to start and take it one step at a time. The longer you wait to start, the more overwhelming the process will be. I like lists so I recommend writing down your first couple of steps and start there. Here are some beginning steps for each year:
Freshman and Sophomores:
- Focus on your grades.
- Choose your extracurricular activities wisely
- Explore ares of interest to narrow down areas of study in the future
- Visit a few schools to get the idea of what you like or don’t like about each one
- Think about getting a job.
Juniors
- Prepare for the SAT/ACT tests and take one of them at least once this year
- Visit colleges
- Continue to explore different areas of study
- In the spring or over the summer you can start writing essays, the Common App releases the essays for the next year ahead of time.
Seniors (early Fall)
- Start by writing down all of the deadlines so you don’t miss any
- Make sure you have any SAT/ACT tests scheduled that you still want to take
- Make a list of colleges you want to apply to and see what their application process entails
- Start filling out applications