What to do Junior Year to Prepare for College

Junior year is an important time to start thinking about college, and it’s the most important year before you start applications in the fall. You should be taking challenging classes and focusing on getting the highest grades you can achieve. Colleges place a high priority on rigor and GPA, so you want to show college admissions counselors that you can handle college-level classes by taking APs, dual enrollment, or even honors if you can. Here are some other areas you should focus on during this year.

Activities

You should already be involved in a number of activities including clubs, volunteering, and sports. Junior year is a time to show some leadership and move up in those organizations to an officer role this year or by senior year. You don’t want to start packing in random activities, ideally these should start earlier in high school, but it’s not too late to join an activity of interest or find an organization to volunteer. Pursue activities in areas that you’re potentially interested in pursuing. For example, if you want to go into journalism, it would be a good idea to join the yearbook, newspaper, or literary club in high school. Keeping an activity throughout high school allows you to build other strengths like leadership, time management, teamwork, and confidence. Besides getting involved in activities, you should be keeping track of everything you are doing throughout high school as you will use list to complete the activities section in the Common App when you apply. This includes any honors or awards as well.

Testing

By the fall of your junior year, you would have already taken the PSAT. This is a good indication of potential SAT scores and can help you determine if you will need test prep or if you want to try the ACT. You should also plan when you want to take those tests. If you are in a lower math class, you may want to wait until the spring of junior year to sign up to ensure you learn all the material. If you’re in a higher math class and have completed algebra, you can take your first SAT in December. Note that more schools are starting to bring back required testing, so it’s a good idea to start prep classes by January or dedicate some hours to practicing on Khan Academy. Ideally, you would want to finish testing by the end of junior year. There are some scheduled SAT/ACT tests in Aug. and in the fall, but since you’ll be working on college applications, it’s a good idea to get them done before if possible.

College Visits

Junior year is an ideal time to tour colleges, as this will help you refine what you want in a school. Even if you don’t know what school or major, start going to a variety of campuses just to get a feel for a large state college, a small liberal arts school, or a school in a city, so you have an idea of location and size that would best fit you. By the end of junior year, you should have a rough list of schools you are interested in. This could change by the time you apply, as you refine your interests and have a better idea of your test scores and GPA, which will help you sort your list into safeties, targets, and reaches. If a college tracks demonstrated interest, then you definitely want to schedule a visit, follow them on social media, sign up for a virtual tour or event, or meet an admissions counselor at a college fair or visit to your school. When visiting schools, try to choose a time when classes are in session, as you want to feel the energy of a campus and can’t do that when school is on break. Many colleges have Open Houses, which is a great way to see all they have to offer.

Start thinking of an essay topic

It’s a great idea to start brainstorming a topic for your personal essay by the end of junior year. While you may not complete it and it will likely go through a variety of iterations, getting a head start by thinking of topic ideas will help alleviate the fall application crunch time. Check out our blog on 10 College Essay Topics to Avoid.

Think about recommendations

By spring of your junior year you should start thinking about who you want to ask to write you a recommendation. It should be a teacher or advisor for a club, but one you had recently, not a teacher from before 10th grade. Think of someone who knows you pretty well and can talk about some of the qualities they observe from you like character, talent or skills. While they will likely not write it until the fall, it’s a good idea to get on their radar as some popular teachers get filled up with requests.

Discuss paying for college

Start to talk with your parents to determine if they will be able to contribute to your education and can give you a price range or max they can afford. You don’t want to put colleges on your list that are out of reach financially. Parents can go to the Net Price Calculator on every school website and enter some information to get an estimate of their net price. This is not a guarantee of financial aid, but a good starting point. It’s better to do this now than have your heart set on a school that’s financially out of reach.