You Got Into Where? is a college admissions advice blog for high school students created by Joi Wade. Topics include the college search, SAT and ACT, college essays, the common application and college scholarships.
A conveniently compiled list of 3 of the best organization methods for students. When it comes to planning and organizing, students often don’t know where to start. This article will describe the benefits of 3 different organizational and planning methods that will fit any student’s lifestyle!
Read MoreThree tips seniors can use to finish the second semester strong. #senioryear #academics #Classof2017
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It is now winter break, which means that the first semester of the school year is just about over. Numerous college acceptances have been sent out, breaths of relief have been released, and many students are now ready to coast through the second semester until graduation. Admittedly, it’s hard not to get in a relaxed mindset after being accepted to college; you worked your hardest to get the GPA and test scores that you wanted, and you deserve a bit of loosening up, right? The fact of the matter is that it’s one thing to ease up on yourself now that you’ve crossed a major bridge and another thing to fall into a slump where you begin to slack off in your academics. The latter is a prospect that should make you uneasy. It definitely makes me uncomfortable, so here are the ways I plan to avoid senioritis and finish out my senior year with a bang!
In order to keep myself from losing motivation throughout the rest of my senior year, I have started making reachable goals that I can accomplish and feel proud of. For example, I am now aspiring to make a high A in my AP Probability and Statistics course instead of the lower-range A that I usually get. It’s nothing major, but it gives me something to work towards that will make me feel happy in the end. By creating these little objectives, I can ensure that I will not lose interest in my classes and will continue to try my very hardest.
Organization is a huge part of my life that keeps me driven all the way up until the finish line. In school, I stay organized by using a nice eye-catching planner and colorful pens to make sure I remember all of my assignments. Before I used a planner I felt like I was stumbling through my academics, but now it’s smooth sailing and I am always eager to cross off every item that I write down. Even now, during break, I use my planner to plan out my schedule for each day so that I can stay productive while I’m not in school and keep up with scholarship deadlines. It keeps both my mind and my goals in check, and I cannot recommend to you enough that you should get a planner as a first step to being organized and staying motivated!
A messy backpack, locker, or desk can also lead to a decrease in motivation, for as crumpled papers pile up you’ll continue to procrastinate in cleaning and have a disorganized mind as a result. By keeping everything in order, from assignments to permission forms, you will be on the top of your game when it comes to all aspects of your life!
I might be a bit paranoid, but even the slightest prospect of having my college acceptances revoked is enough to scare me into doing the best that I can. Senioritis hits some students that hard, though, and they can be threatened if their grades slip past a certain point. In general, just knowing that my guidance counselor has to send mid-year and final reports on my grades to colleges, forces me to snap out of any state of stagnation I am in and keeps me running with my eyes on the prize. It’s important to remember that colleges don’t just accept you and forget about you until your enroll, and instead continue to monitor your grades and make sure that you don’t slip up.
Now that I’ve reached the home stretch of my high school career, I’ve been putting a lot of thought into the future. I think about how hard I’ve worked to get to this point and how I don’t want to diminish that by slacking off now. Furthermore, I don’t want to set a precedent for my freshman year of college, which I am now counting down the days to in pure excitement. If I don’t put in my best effort now, who knows what I’ll be like when I start college next year? You do not want to go into college feeling like you can’t try your hardest, so I recommend keeping your future in mind as you finish up your senior year. A strong conclusion to it will practically guarantee a strong beginning to the next chapter in your life, and if you invent your best self now, you’ll definitely shine bright later in your higher education.
I plan to follow through with all of these points so that I don’t become a victim of senioritis, and I know that you can too! It may seem tiring to trudge through your responsibilities when all you want to do is coast until graduation, but your last semester in high school is just as important as the previous ones. It’s now or never; you only get one shot at having a great senior year, so make sure that you make it the best that you can!
If you are like any high school senior or junior, the demands from inside and outside of the classroom combined with the pressures of getting into college can leave you feeling stressed and overwhelmed. Seniors often feel that they have no way of balancing difficult academics, extracurricular, and college applications. Students should always try to start their applications in the summer in order to alleviate some of the work that comes in the fall. With essays, homework, exams, and extracurricular activities, it’s all about a balancing act in order to make the deadlines, This article will help you with how to balance because if you don’t balance, you’ll find that you may have missed something important in the end.
Getting organized is always the first step in finding balance. We have plenty of tools that can help you get organized. Start as simple as buying a planner from any office store or getting apps such as SoCal, Cal, Weekly Planner, etc; in that has some sort of calendar to log all school assignments, application deadlines, and any important meetings or college interviews. Taking your time to organize your schedule and writing down everything you need to do will help you see what needs to get done. This schedule will allow you to get tasks done little by little. If you manage to all get papers, applications, and other assignments done before deadlines, you will be less stressed at the end the day.
When everything seems to be important, prioritizing assignments can often seem difficult. However, some assignments are more important than others. Learning to prioritize certain assignments and choosing what is most important will allow for students to not only alleviate stress but get you in bed before midnight. If you have an essay due in a week, this should have higher precedence over finishing some projects or applications that due in another month or two. Not only will you keep your grades up but you be able to work proficiently throughout the school year
Don’t catch senioritis. Seniors fall victim as early as September of their senior year but when the second semester comes around, students get caught in a whirlpool. Senioritis will hurt your college admissions when you have to send in your final transcript. Students often make the mistake of waiting last minute to start on assignments and even college applications. Putting off these assignments will stress you out because these deadlines do come sooner than you think. Start your year off strong and stay motivated by keeping up with your deadlines and making sure that you do step back and take a breath. Senior year is difficult and busy so make sure you have some fun.
I hope these tips will help you out this upcoming year. Leave a comment down below if you have any questions. And as always make sure you follow us on Instagram and Facebook.
If I’ve been known to be borderline obsessive about two things, they would be college and organization. I’d made my first college-themed binder in the seventh grade, taking my list of my top colleges at the time and collecting statistics to organize into the huge pink folder. Now, with college a lot more relevant and right around the corner, I’ve caught onto more quick ways to make the whole process a lot easier and more accessible for all of you guys!
When I was first sifting through hundreds of college listings online, I had no idea where to start and how to keep track of the information I was getting in an accessible way. Let’s just say Google Sheets has been a college application lifesaver, saving me so much time and effort by keeping everything I need to know exactly where I can find it easily.
Every time I come across a college I like, I put it into my college spreadsheet. Within this spreadsheet, all of these categories are filled out: “College Name”, “My Chances”, “Location”, “Number of Undergraduates”, and “Tuition”. I’ve figured out location and size are the most important factor to me, but my chances of getting in and the cost of the school are also important in deciding, so those are added in as well.
This can definitely be adjusted to whatever factors you may care about the most, but this system has worked incredibly well in getting me a solid list of schools I really love even before my senior year has started.
If you’re interested in looking into other factors that may play a part for you in choosing a college, there’s a great list of them here to sort through to see what’s really important to you.
If there are two lifesavers I’ve come across while figuring out my deadlines for this upcoming year, they are Google Calendar and Google Sheets.
While I use my phone calendar religiously for anything social going on, I like having Google Calendar on my laptop reserved solely for school and college-related deadlines. It’s insanely helpful just for keeping up with school work, but having the deadlines shown to you in a really visual way helps you to see just how much time you have left.
I also like using Google Sheets, though, just to keep one concise place for keeping track of deadlines. With some applications potentially being due early, it’s easiest for me to lay all of the due dates out with what is due on each day so I can color code my way through the year, marking essays as green for done, yellow for in progress, and red for not yet started.
First thing’s first: Folders, whether on your regular computer or Google Drive, will save your life. I have one for each college I’m applying to, just to keep each essay where it belongs. Any other essays, like drafts of the Common App or scholarship essays, all have their own folders so that everything has it’s place and I can’t accidentally submit an essay to Northwestern saying why I want to go to UChicago.
Hard copies are super important, at least as far as editing goes. I got a 5-layered magazine rack from IKEA for only $15, and labeled each section as follows: “First Drafts”, “Ready for Revisions”, “Ready to Be Read”, “Last Edits”, and “Submissions”. The first drafts section is probably pretty self explanatory, but the others may not be as easy to grasp if you’re not in my weird organization mindset.
“Ready for Revisions” means it’s not a complete mess, but it’s not close to being done yet. “Ready to Be Read” means it’s been made as good as I can make it on my own, but I need to get other opinions and make those edits before I can submit the essay. “Last Edits” is for essays that have been read and revised a few times, and just need a few last touches before they’re ready for submission. “Submissions” are for finished essays. Ta da, time to send those in (in all their magic college glory that you’ve worked so hard on)!
By having an organized system both on your computer and in real life, it’s a lot less difficult to keep track of what you still have to work on before the approaching deadlines.
As you work on and continue to edit your essays, sometimes it can be hard to have to critique your work as much as you do. For some advice on easy ways to edit your own essays, here are five quick tips.
While it may all be stressful – I get it – it can be totally manageable, especially when you have everything organized. Whenever you find time to work on college applications, everything you need is accessible and catered just to you, making it so much easier than having to pull out the scratch sheet of paper you wrote your dream colleges on back in eighth grade.
Everyone’s way of creating an organized system for dealing with college applications may be a little bit different, but hopefully you’ve gained a tip or two for creating a good organization system on your own. With even a bit more organization in your college search, it can free up so much time for you and really let you enjoy your senior year. And, I mean, who could turn down that offer? Not me, and hopefully not you either. All it takes is a spreadsheet.
Have you ever found yourself knee deep in homework, obligations, and chores? Then you may want to start bullet journaling.
A bullet journal is a small notebook that is used to incorporate organization and creativity into your life. A bullet journal helps you jot down the important things in your life and helps organize your life according to the way your brain works. You can use a bullet journal as a calendar, diary, to-do list, and so much more. Even though you may have seen videos of people using fancy journals or expensive pens, you don’t need them to create your own bullet journal. All you need is a simple notebook and a little bit of imagination! One very important thing to remember before starting a bullet journal is that it is YOUR journal. Don’t compare your journals with the ones you see on Pinterest or Instagram because you are a completely different person from the creators of those bullet journals. Do what work best for you and take your time. Remember, it’s not a competition and this is just a fun way to keep track of your daily responsibilities. Why should you start bullet journaling? Bullet journals are a way to keep all your thoughts in one place that is easy to refer to and read. It allows you to assess your priorities and take the best course of action to complete your tasks. Your organizational skills and thought processes will also improve gradually with constant bullet journaling. Some also say bullet journaling is relaxing and therapeutic. It also allows you to take control of your life, which can ultimately decrease your stress levels.
Most people begin by numbering the pages of their bullet journal to keep track of pages and to find certain information quickly. This can be a somewhat tedious task so you may want to number them as you fill in the pages. Many bullet journals also include a table of contents at the beginning. It allows for easy reference as you begin to fill in the pages of your journal. Having a key page can also be handy since you will most likely have a lot of different types of things being written down in your bullet journal. Doing so will also prevent you from forgetting or misinterpreting information.
The actual content of your bullet journal will depend entirely on you. Some people bullet journal on a daily basis with daily to do lists, while others plan out their events in monthly calendars. What you do will depend on what you actually want your journal’s purpose to be. If you’re like many people, your journal is a mixture of a lot of things. Sometimes you may use your bullet journal to jot down ideas for an essay, to write important birthdays, or to just simply doodle.
Logs are also essential pages that are present in bullet journals. There are three main types of logs: future, monthly and daily. Future logs are bullet lists where you jot down the events and/or tasks for the future. The great thing about the future log is that you can add more things to it and nothing is “set in stone”. Monthly logs are quite similar to future logs but they only focus on one month at a time. You can also add all the days of the month to help track of dates of the events that you may add. Last but not least, you have the daily log. The daily log is where you write you tasks or events down to help you stay organized much like the future and monthly log. Besides logs, bullet journals can include grocery lists, sketches, brainstorming, etc. It really is up to you as to what the content of your bullet journal includes. It may be helpful to think about the parts of your life that you’d like to be more organized in and tailor your journal to those.
All bullet journals are essentially a small notebook or journal that can be purchased or may be lying around your house. It may also be convenient to have a small bullet journal if you plan on writing in it throughout the day. You may also want to invest in some colorful, quality pens if you want your bullet journal to look more artsy. Watercolor pencils and paints are also great ways to add a little pop to your pages. But, if you enjoy simplicity then a plain black or blue pen will work too! So, don’t worry if your pages don’t look like the ones on Pinterest. Some people respond differently to notes if they are written in different colors so it’s all up to your preference.
All in all, bullet journals can be great ways to take control of your life and help prevent disorganization by collecting all the needed information that will help you with your daily endeavors.
“I can’t, I have to (insert mundane task here)” We’ve all been there. Friday afternoon, just when you’re finally decompressing after a taxing week of school, you get a surprise text from one of your friends (who seemingly never have any work to do). They ask you to hang out, and suddenly everything that you planned to do over the “endless” weekend seems to pile up in front of you. Your mind gets bombarded with schoolwork and clubs and oh god, no, laundry!! You cancel, saying that you really need to get caught up on your to do list, which really means Netflix until the memories of your responsibilities disappear (but you’d feel guilty going out when you have so much to do). Luckily, there are small habits that you can build to help you optimize your time.
Month by Month to Beat the Funk
Having a big picture view of your obligations can help you get a grasp of how much you have to do and which obligations are the most important. This is the time to break out a calendar. Things like school don’t need to be marked on the calendar since they happen daily, but if April is the beginning of lacrosse season and your new SAT class, then it would be helpful to mark the days of games and classes to make sure that you have a clear idea of what activities you have to juggle.
It could be helpful to also color code your calendar, such as by having green highlighter for sports and blue highlighter for family activities. Having a color system would help you see easily whether this month is more green heavy (meaning you have many extracurricular activities) or more blue heavy (meaning your family is getting together a lot this month), showing you where your priorities should lie for this time.
This calendar would also be the place to mark any special events that happen only once, such as your sister’s dance recital or your friend’s birthday party (trust me, you do not want to suddenly remember that it’s your friend’s sweet sixteen thirty minutes before her party). Make sure to put your calendar in a very visible place, so that you can easily see your obligations.
Week to Week, Get the Free Time You Seek
Now that you know where your priorities lie, make weekly goals so that your tasks don’t seem so large and looming. If you have to read a book for English class this month, write down that you want to read at least one hundred pages this week. If you have a big piano recital coming up, say that this week you’ll learn the second half of the song or perfect that part at the end. Weekly goals are large enough so that you can see your work building up, but small enough so that they’re not overwhelming. Keep your list of weekly goals somewhere that you see daily, so that you can see if you’re really working to accomplish them.
It also helps to have a designated rest day during your week, sometime to just relax, hang out with friends and family, or just make sure that your room is clean. After reading this article, you probably will be so inspired that you’ll want to get on that grind every single day, but having a rest day will help make sure that you don’t burn out. Mani-pedi Sunday with your sister or that movie on Saturday with your friends might be the thing that gets you through a tough week of studying.
Day by Day to Keep the Stress Away
In all honesty, it really helps to have a daily plan that you never deviate from. Having one builds structure and helps prevent that “Oh my gosh, my life is falling apart!” feeling that high schoolers are so used to having. Little habits build the foundation of a really productive person. Having a set homework time (and snack time, so that you don’t die of starvation while doing calculus) may seem like an unnecessary inconvenience, but a strict schedule will help you make sure that you always have your work done and that you never find yourself in the dangerous haze of the procrastinator (aka every high school student ever).
Sample Schedule Suggestion
In the morning:
In the evening:
Sometime or Another:
With all of these tips in mind, it is also very important to make room for adjustments. Surprises happen to everyone, almost regularly (almost). Your mom might forget to tell you that you have to babysit your younger brother, or your laptop might break down (like mine did today). These things will happen, but all of that extra time that you’ll have because of your efficient planning will help you deal with these surprises and still have time and energy to spare!
Highlighters, post-its, organizing, oh my! Right around the beginning of Junior year, my schedule turned hectic. AP classes, club meetings, and social events clouded up my schedule, and I did not know the best way to deal with the stress.
In comes my planner, the single thing that saved my grades from plummeting. It kept my life organized. And me?Well... it kept me motivated.
Below are some secrets of mine to staying organized, and using a planner to keep your hectic life in line!
Most planners have a section of the notebook dedicated to notes, and to-do lists. Use it for things like shopping lists, homework, or things to remember.
Putting sticky notes on individual days can maximize the space in your planner. Last minute plans, errands, and chores are great things to write down.
The only way to be able to keep it up to date is to keep it with you. Get a smaller one and throw it in your bag, or put it in your backpack during school!
Use things like stickers, washi tape, and cute decorations to make your planner more you. Some planners even come with items specifically to make it all yours.
If you do not actually do the things you put in your planner during the time you put it for, you will get out of the habit of using it and end up back where you started. I personally struggle with this, but the best way to avoid it is forcing yourself to follow your schedule, until it is a habit.
One of You Got Into Where?'s favorites: The Erin Condren Life Planner. This planner is state-of-the-art, featuring things like a leather exterior, 3 different calendar layouts to choose from, and a section designed specifically for goal setting! It is 100% customizable, with tons of fun colors and covers to choose from. If you're more of a neutral kind of person, they have a scheme specifically for you, too! You can even make a collage of your pictures for the cover of it.
Check it out here: https://www.erincondren.com/lifeplanner#learnMore
Overall, a planner will become your second savior in high school. Don't let it go to waste. Make it useful and make it pretty!
Heading into my last year of high school, I’ve seen so many friends leave behind some of their longest lasting extracurriculars, add on some fun activities, and also give themselves the break they’ve always wished they could have. If you’re trying to figure out the best ways to spend free time as you deal with balancing college applications and school with real life, hopefully this will help you to prioritize and take on what really is right for you.
Stick with what you love.If you’ve been doing something since freshman year (or longer) and can’t imagine your last year of high school without it, there’s no doubt you should stick with it. Having things you’ve cared about for a long time looks good to colleges, but another huge benefit here is having something you truly enjoy doing.
If you’re wanting to start a club related to an interest you’ve had for quite some time or take on a leadership role in a club or sport you’ve been involved in, go for it! Now’s the time to do things you’ve wanted to do and lead the activities you’ve grown to love in high school. Make sure, though, to keep note of how time consuming your activities may be and balance them out.
If you’ve done something the past three years, but aren’t really into it anymore, don’t sweat leaving it behind. If you’ve got other activities to keep you busy, or if you need more time and the club or sport is too time consuming, it’s not a big deal. There’s always something else. I’ve seen my own friends leave behind swimming or band just because they lost interest or wanted a different type of senior year, and that’s totally fine. Even though doing four years of something does look good, freedom feels good and gives you the chance to delve even deeper into other things that look good as well as being more important to you.
Keep it reasonable. While it is common to hear about how being well rounded is really important, joining ten new clubs your senior year is probably going to make you more stressed than anything else. Like this article says, colleges value quality of your extracurriculars over quality, so opt for a few you really care about being involved in over a ton that you’re just using to look better.
Make sure you’re not overcommitting. Manage your time well, leaving some days open so you can work on homework and college applications as well as having fun. Before you fully commit to a handful of clubs, I’ve found that writing them all out can help you to understand just how much time they’re taking up. When you read over your schedule and realize that you wouldn’t be getting home until 10:00 for most of the week, you may opt to continue doing those things or you may want to let a few go.
Every person’s different in how much they can handle, how much homework they do at home versus at school, and how they balance their weeks. Just be wary of overcommitting, especially when you’ve got so much to do and your last year of high school to enjoy.
While you may love all of your extracurriculars, make sure you leave time for yourself. Have fun during your last year of high school, both in the activities you choose to be involved in and in your everyday life at school and with friends. For a few ideas on how to enjoy yourself despite the stress, here’s a senior year bucket list perfect for making sure you’re smiling your way through the year.
Extracurriculars are meant to be fun ways to explore your interests, so don’t let them take over your life completely. By choosing wisely and making sure you really enjoy what you’re committing to, they won’t feel stressful, instead helping to take the stress of college and senior year away.
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