College Planning for Juniors
If you have not already begun, it is time to get started! Juniors who begin planning for college now will give themselves a few extra months to prepare quality applications and find better fit schools.
If you have not already begun, it is time to get started! Juniors who begin planning for college now will give themselves a few extra months to prepare quality applications and find better fit schools. Unfortunately, many students delay planning until the summer before senior year and end up squeezing months of work into just a few weeks before they submit their applications which are often sub-par. Here are a few things to work on over the next few months to help you prepare to apply for college before you begin senior year.
COLLEGE SEARCH
Begin researching colleges online and thinking about the qualities you want your future school to have. Often, students do not know what they want until they actually set foot on a few campuses. Planning now allows you plenty of time to do some visits this Spring while the semester is in full swing and you can get a feel for student life on campus. Use your breaks and weekends to do some campus visits. If you can not visit, do your best to research online and connect with past or current students to get more information.
RESUME BUILDING
Take the time to truly write down everything you have done throughout high school. Include activities both in- and outside of school as well as jobs, hobbies and awards. Write quality descriptions of the activities and your role in the organizations. Doing this now will give you a better picture of what may be missing. While it is not a good idea to suddenly add lots of new activities or clubs, you still have time to increase your involvement in what you currently do and add things which complement it. Writing your resume now will also make the process of completing your application later much simpler.
TESTING
If you begin preparing now, you have months to prepare for the Spring and Summer SAT and/or ACT test dates. You should allow yourself 4-6 weeks to prepare for the tests and by taking them earlier, you will have time to get your scores, work on your areas of weakness and retake them before you have to submit your applications. Also, taking these tests early will give you an idea of where you stand and what level of schools you should consider your targets, safeties and reaches. Students who end up taking their tests in the Fall of senior year face the added stress of having to worry about getting the new scores added to their applications and making sure they arrive in time to be considered.
ESSAYS
The Common Application recently announced that their essay prompts for the 2020-21 application year will remain unchanged from the past year. This means you have plenty of time to brainstorm and write your best essay. Schools which require other essays may not announce them until later in the summer, but you can get this one out of the way early and often times it can be re-used for schools which do not use the Common Application. Take the time to write several drafts and review for grammar and content improvements.
CAREER EXPLORATION
A very important part of college planning is figuring out what you want to study. While you may change your mind several times throughout the next few years, you can do some exploration now to get on the right path. Organize job shadows, internships and/or summer exploration programs to help you dig a little deeper into potential careers and college majors. Do not be afraid to ask family and connections for help with organizing these opportunities. Even if it is only for a few hours or days, that may be all that’s needed to help you eliminate or solidify your interest in something.
Tips for the Common Application
As college application season is fully underway, it is time for some tips for jump-starting your applications and filling out the Common Application.
As college application season is fully underway, it is time for some tips for jump-starting your applications and filling out the Common Application:
Once you have created your Common App account, search for and add your colleges to your list via the search tab.
Create a timeline with all relevant application deadlines for each school to keep you on task. Include personal deadlines for completing the essays and other materials you will be submitting.
Make an essay chart which includes all essay requirements for each school along with the wordcount limits. Begin drafting your essays as soon as possible to give yourself time for several rounds of editing. Set an early deadline for essays to keep yourself on time for all applications.
Make a designated application folder and gather all documents and information needed for the Common Application. Take a look at the quick guide below to get an idea of what information you will need to complete the app. By gathering materials needed such as your transcript, counselor and teacher contact info, resume, and testing information before you begin, you will save yourself time and stress while you are in the middle of it. If you do not have a resume, now is a great time to put one together for future use.
Formally ask your recommenders in person to write their letters before inputting their contact information and sending the request via Common App. For more tips about that, check out my previous post here: http://acmcollegeconsulting.com/the-recommendation-letter-2/
Before you submit your application, please follow up with your teachers and counselors to ensure they will be able to complete and submit a recommendation prior to the school’s stated application deadline. You will not be able to make changes to the teacher/counselor list after you submit your application, you will only have the option of re-sending the notification to your teacher or counselor.When entering your activities, list them in order of importance. You can use the arrows to rearrange them. You have the space to include 10 activities with a description of up to 150 characters not including the 50 character title/role section. You may need to be creative to fit a decent description into such limited space. You can use easily understandable abbreviations and incomplete sentences, but do not use acronyms. Use active verbs and try to include details which demonstrate your affect on the organization such as factual results. Whatever you do, be consistent with the formatting you are using for listing each activity. Just because there are 10 spaces for activities, do not feel the need to fill them. However, if you do happen to have more than 10 substantial activities, you can use the additional information section to include others. Do not do this unless the activities are truly meaningful. Your application readers will know the difference between something significant and fluff.
Invite your counselor, consultant or a mentor to serve as an Advisor for your Common App. You can add them under the Recommenders and FERPA section for your colleges by using their email address. This will allow them to login and view an outline of your application. It is great to have someone else look over everything you entered and make suggestions for optimizing your activity descriptions, etc. Note that the Advisor will not be able to edit or submit anything on your behalf and colleges will not be able to see them.
Make a copy of materials submitted and take screenshots of submission verifications in case data is lost or somehow received late. Believe it or not, these screenshots have played an important role in discussions of timely submission of applications with colleges.