Some Advice for Rising Juniors

You may have heard people say that Junior year is the most important year from a college admissions perspective, and they are not wrong! As it is the last full year of grades colleges will see when assessing your academic fitness, it is the culmination of all of your hard work. So here are a few things to keep in mind as you approach this school year:

• Your grades this year are very important, there is no understating that. Did you have some rocky classes in freshman and sophomore year? You can still redeem yourself this year. Colleges love an upward trend that proves you can overcome some academic stumbles! So hunker down and hit those books!

• Are you taking the most rigorous course load you can possibly manage while maintaining your GPA? Is there another AP or Honors class you could take on (without ruining your whole schedule) and excel in? Given that colleges are predicting your ability to handle college-level work, successfully (key word here) taking on more challenging classes is a great way to show them that! Yes, you may have heard your school’s APUSH teacher is hard or the AP Lang teacher is boring, but doing at least reasonably well in their classes could open up more options for you next year; play the long game here!   

• On top of taking the most demanding schedule you can handle, junior year is a great time to develop or explore new interests outside of school. Do you have a sense of what you might want to major in in college? Have you done much to demonstrate that passion? Have you pursued opportunities outside of school to further your knowledge/skills? On the flip side, if you have no idea what you want to study, have you sampled some new possibilities? Consider taking an online or summer class; Coursera, for instance, has online classes taught by college professors on literally any topic you can imagine! 

• Start building good relationships with the teachers you have this year (and your guidance counselor!) as these are going to be some of the people who will be writing recommendation letters for you next year. Be engaged in class as much as you can, and drop in after class to chat with teachers whom you particularly like. Give them a chance to get to know you a little more, not just as a student, but as a whole person.

• Now is a great time to start strategizing on your standardized testing plan. As you should have completed Algebra II by now, you have all of the math you will need to succeed on the ACT and SAT. For starters, get a sense of each test (there are practice tests online), and choose which one you like better (this one really does come down to vibes!) Look at when each test is offered; dates through next summer are already all set. Think about what your year is going to look like: are there months that are going to be particularly busy with sports, the school play, etc? Avoid those times of year, and make sure you give yourself a good couple of months to start preparing, as well as building in time to retake a test once or twice to try and improve your score.  

• Most importantly, have a wonderful year and soak up all of that great high school learning and fun!