Hi students, parents, readers, and writerly friends!

The last two times we spoke in Freelancing, we talked about college admissions essays and what YA Fiction gets wrong about college. This week, we’re continuing the discussion about college prep and when exactly you should be doing what to ensure you do the very best to get into the college of your dreams and stand a chance against the competition. This blog post does not go into detail about the college admissions essay, but I did write a post that deep dives into that, so click here to check it out.

Instead, this blog post will discuss what all you can do to prepare for college in high school so that you don’t end up in you senior year without a clue and application deadlines around the corner. I will go over how you can start preparing all the way in ninth grade and keep working towards college through to your senior year. This blog post is great for both parents who want their children to succeed and students with enough drive to take their education into their own hands. If you want to learn more about how to prepare for college throughout high school, keep reading!

Before we begin, you should know that colleges aren’t looking for superheroes; they’re looking for real, genuine, fantastic human beings. Honors, awards, and AP classes aren’t everything, but they certainly look great on your college application for sure. Colleges know that students can’t do everything, but that’s not the point. The college application is not a list of boxes to check and is not expecting perfection. Colleges want to know what you’re good at, what you like, what kind of great experiences you’ve had and what makes you, well, you. Of course you want to try and make the most of your high school experience but don’t burn yourself out and don’t strive for perfection. Instead look at it like this: you college application is a polished, positive representation of your academic career, your extracurricular activities and interests, and your notable experiences as a teenager. It’s as close to perfect as a snapshot into your life can get without being a full-blown resume.

Freshman and Sophomores will have a lot of foundational work, but Junior and Senior high school students will find they have the most work over all to do to prepare. The last two years of high school are the most intense by far—with classes wrapping up, final grades being posted, GPA’s being calculated, and deadlines approaching with each week, it can be hard to know when and where to start. First of all, there are three key things to remember: 1) it is never to early to start, 2) it is always a bad idea to wait until the last second, and 3) it is too early to worry. While college prep is important and academics should be taken seriously, don’t overstress yourself about the future. Remember, you are still a kid/teenager and you should get to experience high school while you can. By following these steps outlined in this post, you can effectively prepare over time instead of cramming everything into your senior year.

Freshman Year

What should you be doing to prepare for college in the ninth grade?  This is actually quite simple. Have fun, experience high school, make memories, and get involved. Don’t start stressing just yet, because you’re likely in your early teens, you’re still figuring life out and there’s no reason you need to have your future all planned out just yet. So, deep breath—you’ve got nothing to worry about. Instead, join or start clubs at your high school. Get involved with group activities like sports, choir, band, or drama. Join the student council or National Junior Honor’s Society. Consider how school clubs and extracurricular activities can give back to the community and start working on knocking out some community service hours early.

But make sure no matter how you get involved, to have fun. Likewise, if you’ve done activities in middle school that you enjoyed, then consider doing them in high school as well. If you decide you’re ready for something new, set aside those shoulderpads or that old dusty trombone and pick up something new.  Life is all about experiences and colleges want to accept well-rounded individuals. Ninth grade is a great transition period and an opportunity to try things out, experiment with different hobbies, and to have fun all while learning more about yourself. Additionally, if you decide to try out an activity or club but decide it’s not for you, there’s no need to stick with it if its not a good fit.

On the other hand though, never let the activities get in the way of a stellar report card. I totally understand that eighth graders transitioning into ninth graders are put under a lot of stress. Most students are expected to carry a full course load, participate in all kinds of activites, take up a part-time job, learn to drive, all against the backdrop of the tumultuous experience of being a teenager. I get it. Years 12-18 can be a rough time even without all of the added stresses from school and work. Again, just take a deep breath and remember that good grades must always come first.

Of course you don’t have to do everything ever, but see what activities you can/would like to get involved with that you can also work around your schedule and workload that also leaves time for free time and self-care. Don’t just goof-off in your early high school years. One lesson I had to learn the hard was is that classes get increasingly more difficult as you progress through each grade. If you ace the easy, early classes, your GPA will fare far better in the long run. Start making your grades a priority now. Likewise, don’t wait until the last minute to remedy your struggling grades. If you’re having a tough time in any of your classes, seek help as soon as possible. The first place to get help with your studies is always your teacher. They are there to help you and will likely work with you one-on-one to help you get the material down. Ultimately, the success of your academic career is on you, and not your teachers. Show them you care and make an obvious effort they will help you succeed.

Sophomore Year

By your second year, you should have hit your stride in high school. Sophomores usually feel like they’ve got a pretty good grasp on the structure of high school, how to balance academics with activities, and many have a general idea of what is necessary to be successful in high school moving forward. Remember to drop any activities you find aren’t working for you and join any that you might like to get involved with. And of course, don’t forget to keep your grades on track. If you had a rough freshman year, then the stakes are higher for you in your sophomore year. But don’t panic, you still have time to turn your grades around and keep going on an upward trajectory.

With that being said, keep up the good work and continue making grades your number one priority. Now would even be a good time to ask if you are able to re-take any courses you received poor grades on, to try and correct your GPA early on, while there’s still time to do so. Additionally, consider enrolling for AP courses in your sophomore year. If freshman year was all about the newness of high school, experimenting, and transitioning, then sophomore year is about layering on the things you enjoy and giving yourself a bit of a challenge. It will vary student by student, but if your school offers AP classes, enrolling in a couple during your sophomore year is generally a good idea. Don’t go overboard with your first few AP classes. I’d say only take at maximum two AP classes if you’ve never taken an advanced class before. Consider meeting with a counselor and even with the AP professors to discuss what the workload will be like moving up from a regular to an Advanced Placement course.

Now, let’s talk about Sophomore-Junior Summer. You know, that sweet spot between the early years and the later years of high school, were you can start doing the heavy lifting and laying the foundation for successful junior and senior years. If you haven’t already, start getting involved with your community. Consider joining a debate team. Pick up a summer job. (If you can continue working though the school year then great, but look for something seasonal that can give you some great work/life experience.) Likewise, you can also apply to summer programs, internships and join summer camps for similar experience. And most importantly, start studying and practicing for the SAT’s and ACT’s. Students who find they are poor test-takers or even overachievers will find calm in getting a look at these standardized tests well in advance. Students begin taking these types of tests in their junior years, so preparing for them over the summer helps alleviate stress and will make their junior year go by much smoother.

Junior Year

Students, I hope you’re feeling a fire under your feet because things are really starting to heat up now. Junior year is one of, if not the most academically critical for your high school career and ultimately your college admission. During this year you will need to buckle down and do the most. While freshman and sophomore years were more about finding your groove and getting acquainted with high school, junior year is where the real magic happens. Junior year is where students start lining up all the dominos they’ll be knocking down come the college admission essay season during senior year. This year, you will want to be striving for the best possible grades in the most challenging classes. The majority of your course load should be AP courses and honors.

Additionally, you want to be strategic about the types of classes you take for AP or honors. Students who have even a tiny sliver of an idea of what they might want to do in or after college should consider taking AP classes that align with their strengths and interests. Typically subjects split between Science/Math and Art/Humanities and students will find themselves on either side of that split depending on where their strengths and interests lie. Don’t sign up for AP Chemistry just because everyone is taking that class or because it seems cool. AP Chemistry is hard, and there’s no reason to enroll in a blatantly rigorous class if it won’t make sense in the long run. However, if you think you might want to study Humanities in college, it might not hurt to take an AP World History course, because this will help you build some foundational knowledge that could come in handy later.

Now that the experimenting phases of freshman and sophomore year are over its time to start ramping up your extracurriculars to the next level. You know that saying, “Jack of all trades, master of none”? Well the same idea goes for hobbies and extracurricular activities as well. Trying new things is great, but now is the time to stop being a beginner and start adding more challenging, advanced activities to your plate. If you really enjoyed Drama I and Drama II in your freshman and sophomore years, consider continuing with Advanced Drama, Musical or Debate. Widen your skills and experiences but continue moving vertically rather than laterally. Consider getting involved with leadership opportunities. Sign up for bigger projects and roles within your school clubs. Continue getting involved with the community and building up your community service experience. Start clubs that might be missing (and needed) at your school. Likewise, now is the time to show off your abilities. If there are any competitions or contents, junior year is the grade to do so. Sign up and participate in art competitions or a mathalon.

Next, during your junior year, you are going to want to form close bonds with key teachers, counsellors, and mentors. Consider what you’d like to do in and after college and see which teachers fit into that picture. If you’re wanting to get into the publishing industry after college, consider talking to your creative writing teacher about any opportunities they might know of that you haven’t yet taken advantage of. Mentors in high school can be invaluable and you should not take their time, attention and expertise for granted. Likewise, forming strong bonds with teachers and mentors who know you, like you and have a good sense of your character can be critical when it comes time to collect letters of recommendation.

While these letters alone won’t guarantee acceptance into any school, they are amazing for giving colleges a second opinion on you and shedding more light on your character outside of your own admission essay and application. It is true that these letters can be the determining factor that pushes a school to accept you as opposed to another student with similar academic merit. As for the letters themselves, consider asking teachers and mentors to write them during the spring of Junior year. This way, they have time to dedicate adequate attention and energy to writing a glorious recommendation letter over the summer, instead of stressing about getting that done on top of finals and a whole litany of end-of-the-year tasks.

Additionally, during the spring of your junior year, you will want to take the SAT or the ACT for the first time. By now, you’ve have many classes under your belt and this first experience of these intense standardized tests will prepare you for what is to come in your senior year. Which one you decide to take will be up to you. Most colleges accept both, but the SAT is more widely used. However, once again, consider your strengths and weaknesses. The SAT is more English/Writing and Math skills, whereas the ACT focuses more on Science. The key to these types of tests is always studying and practice. Taking these tests way ahead of time, such as in the early spring of junior year, rather than waiting until the spring of senior year, allows you to have a baseline. A baseline is the first scores you get from these tests and will help you determine where your strongest and weakest subjects lie. It will help you get a feel for what you need to study more of and where you can work to improve your score.

Lastly—and this is completely optional—but if your schedule and financial situation permits, consider visiting the campuses of the schools you think you might like to attend. Sign up for campus tours, schedule meetings with advisors and check out the clubs and activities available to students at your potential universities.

During you’re the summer between your junior and senior years, you are going to need to start actually preparing for the transition from high school to college. You will want to start putting together college lists, doing your research on prospective schools, practicing, and preparing your Common App college application and essay and preparing for one of the single most stressful years of your academic life. But again, don’t panic. With a little (okay, maybe a lot) of preparation and planning, you can certainly pull this off.

Senior Year

It’s no secret that everyone’s senior year is an absolute whirlwind of activity, stress and college prep. Not to mention, students often start feeling burnout, or senioritis as many like to call it. However, it doesn’t have to be that way at all. Senior year should be exciting, fun, memorable and you shouldn’t let stress rob you of those wonderful experiences that come with your final year of high school.  

Of course, you’ll have a lot going on this year, but make sure to keep your grades up. Being the last year of high school, you are likely facing your heaviest, most challenging workload and there’s no turning back and no time for slipups. Stay on your grades, get help early, keep everything on track. This is the most important task of your senior year. Your twelfth-year grades do matter. Schools will look at your final year grades and can base their decisions on whether or not you kept an upward trajectory or instead let your grades take a nosedive once senioritis started creeping in. Collect your letters of recommendation from your teachers and prepare everything you need for the applications.

The second most important task of your senior year is taking the SAT/ACT early and with enough times to get as close to your desired score as possible. If you took these tests in your junior year, then great! You already know what you’re in for and hopefully it will be easier this time around. If not, then absolutely take your tests on the first available test date in September. Don’t cut things any closer by waiting until November or December to get your baseline score. Study often and rigorously, take the tests early and at every opportunity you have, and strive for the best possible score. 

The third most important task of your senior year is putting together everything you need for your college applications and admission essay. As mentioned previously, don’t wait until senior year to start planning your admission essay. I suggested working on it late in your junior year and during the summer between junior and senior year, but if you have the time and the drive to start working on it a bit earlier, that is fine too. Just make sure you’re following the correct prompt from the Common App or your desired school(s)’ essay prompt(s). As mentioned, at the start of this blog post, I won’t be going into the college admission essay process, but you can read all about it here. What you need to know for now, and within the context of this blog post, is that at the start of your senior year, you should start brainstorming and planning your admission essay so come application time, you will already have a fabulous piece of writing ready to submit with your applications.

Piggybacking of that idea, consider what schools, programs, and scholarships you will want to apply for. Scholarships have a surprisingly limited application window and they will creep up on you in October, September and even August of your senior year without so much as a whisper. Get the jump on these scholarships so you can at least make every effort possible to take advantage of these opportunities as early as you can.

On a slightly different and arguable more awkward topic, your senior year is the time to finally sit down and have the “Finances” chat with your parents. Some students will be privileged enough to have parents and family members willing and able to pay their way through college. Others will be expected to work for college or take out federal student loans to cover their studies. Students who fall below a certain income threshold may be able to receive financial aid from their academic institution via the FAFSA. Have a realistic conversation with your parents and outline a plan of action for covering all potential college expenses. Narrowing down which schools fall within your family’s budget will help you determine which schools you might want to apply for. On the same note, discuss with your family how you will pay for application fees in December.

There is so much to do in your senior year, you want to try and get everything lined up during the summer. You want to know what schools you want to apply for early, so you can know when their application deadlines are, how much the applications cost, and devise a strategy with your parents. Many students face the stress of waiting until their senior year to do everything all at once. This results in missed deadlines, failing grades, sloppy workmanship, and ultimately burnout during one of the most memorable years of students’ lives. Plan ahead of time and put in the effort. Most of the work that goes into being as prepared as possible for college is doing research and planning ahead.

And that’s it for my 9th-12th grade college prep guide. What do you think about preparing for college throughout high school? Were you an early bird or a procrastinator? What would you do different about your college prep experience? Let me know in the comments below!

Further reading:

• College Admissions Essay Basics

• Self-Care Tips for Readers and Writers

Thumbnail photo by Jeshoots.

—Payton