The Home Stretch: How I Plan to Avoid Senioritis

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!

Making Small Goals for Myself

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.

Staying Organized

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!

Remembering That Not Everything is Final

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.

Thinking About the Future

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!

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Four Methods to Organize Your College Application Materials

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!

College List Organization

 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.

Deadline Organization

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.

Essay Organization

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.

Life Organization

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.

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Four Steps to Conquer Senioritis this Year

Senior year is an exciting year. High school is almost over, summer vacation follows, and College is right around the corner. But with senior year comes senioritis which means procrastination, goofing off, or skipping class, but don’t succumb to the temptation. It’s possible to keep your grades and still have fun your senior year. Here are four ways to avoid senioritis and finish strong.

1. Fulfill Both Graduation and Admissions Requirements.

With college applications opening up for the fall semester, it becomes difficult to balance school work, applications, and jobs or extracurricular activities. Because of that, students’ grades tend to drop. Some schools require that certain classes are needed to graduate, so make sure that you attend all your classes and keep your grades up in order to secure your graduation. Keeping your grades up also helps you when you need to fulfill your admission requirements and earn scholarships. When you apply to college and are accepted before the school year ends, many colleges will require to maintain your grades to stay a student at that school or to keep a scholarship that you may have earned.  Once accepted, students fail to realize that their final transcripts can still impact their college admissions. Not keeping your grades up can cost you financial aid and scholarships at your prospective school.

2. Stay Organized

Managing your time between school, work or activities, and friends can be demanding as senior. Students tend to lose focus on their studies and concentrate more on friends and activities. Keeping a daily planner with homework and tasks that you need or would like to complete not only inclines you to complete the task but staying on top of your task means that you won’t fall behind on things that need to be done. Scheduling free time is also a way for you to get motivated to finish the more difficult tasks so you can have time to relax with your friends.

3. Stay Healthy

A common symptom of senioritis is feeling sluggish and unhealthy in the morning which leads to a student skipping class or school. If they choose to go to school, they drag themselves to class and won’t be able to stay focused in class.  Exercising and eating enough protein and vegetables will help get rid of that sluggish feeling. Staying or getting healthy is a way to feel refreshed and motivated to go school.

4. Set Attainable Goals

Setting goals that you know you can keep is a way for you the get a sense of accomplishment during the stressful times of senior year. Setting goals that are almost impossible to accomplish only add more stress which isn’t healthy. Setting goals teach a student to judge the important things when faced with multiple problems. Getting things done on your own will help in college because it creates a sense of independence that when they enter college, there won’t be any parents making sure that they get their tasks completed.

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.

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What You Should Be Doing Each Year in High School to Have a Successful College Admissions Experience

Growing up, I used to watch a lot of TV. Even though the heat didn’t work in my basement and the room gave me shivers that went to the balls of my feet, a show or two was always on my daily agenda. With age, the shows I was interested in shifted from wanting to watch the PBS Kids nightly specials to recording every Disney Channel and Nickelodeon original movie that was ever mentioned on a commercial. I was one of those that can still sing both the Camp Rock and Camp Rock 2 soundtracks by heart. Still can, actually, and still with no shame. With my introduction to Nickelodeon and Disney Channel shows, my different visions of the high school life became brightened like Christmas lights, and I was becoming more than excited to go. While I knew I would never be acting at (the fake) Hollywood Arts High School or living on a Cruise Ship, I wanted to know how I could make my years of high school as productive and entertaining as possible within a more traditional high school experience.

Because of the lack of older siblings or other family to help give me advice, I turned to YouTube. At the time, I had already learned a lot through the site, like that cats can do absolutely anything and oranges are extremely annoying when they talk. However, when I tried to do research on how my four years had to go in order to have a competitive college application, I was only able to salvage a few genuine responses, as 95% of the knowledge I gained from the videos were identical advice regurgitated with different wording, advice as common and bland as a saltine cracker. With the help of some exceptions, including YouTubers (Katherout, Annemarie Chase, and Joi Wade), I was inspired to try some things for myself, and found what worked and when I needed to start things.  I worked for you to avoid the mistakes that I’ve made during high school, and a good timeline to follow to prepare yourself for the college admissions process.

Freshman year

Academics:

Academically, freshman year of high school is an adjustment period. Some people, like myself, find the adjustment easy, and others find it more difficult. However, it is a year that goes on your transcript so it’s important to start the year focused and stay focused throughout the year.

Extracurricular Activities:

Get overly involved in activities. If you have any slight interest, sign up to get alerts and go to the first couple of meetings. It’s easier to join some activities then quit them after freshman year, if you don’t like them, than to try to join clubs, sports, etc. as an upperclassman.

Testing:

This should be an area you are least concerned with. Because most of you won’t have the math skills or have built up the English language skills that are crucial to the ACT/SAT. Don’t do more than the practice tests your school may require you to take.

Miscellaneous:

1. One of the best ways of getting through the stresses of high school and the college admission process is having friends or a community that will support you through both your successes and failures. Freshman year is a great time to establish your “crew” that will be there for you. While these people may not stay with you throughout your entire high school journey, at least having a past connection is a great support mechanism to make the high school experience both fun and rewarding.
2. Set both short and long-term goals for yourself academically, within your extra-curricular activities and socially. These goals can range from making the varsity lacrosse team, to getting a 3.8 unweighted GPA, to getting into your state school. Writing these goals down and keeping them somewhere where you’ll read them often can help you maintain your focus throughout the school year.

Sophomore Year

Academics:

Keep grinding. Stay focused. If you slipped into bad habits freshman year or were not happy with your academic performance, don’t dwell on those mistakes. Use them as motivation and a learning experience for this year and going forward.

Testing:

By the summer, talk to your parents/guardians and determine how you’ll be preparing for your standardized tests (the ACT/SAT), whether that’s with prep courses, private tutors, or self-studying, in order to get ahead of your peers. If you think prep courses or private tutoring are paths you’ll need to go on, it may be a good thing to pursue during the summer as you have more free time to do the practice.

Extracurricular Activities:

By sophomore year, continue to search for the extracurricular activities you really enjoy. There is no shame in quitting or joining activities this year. If you want to have the possibility to gain leadership in one of these activities, make sure to attend as many of the events/practices/meetings for the activity, in order to show dedication to the advisor or coach.

Miscellaneous:

If you’re interested in doing some more unique things during college, like playing a sport, joining an ROTC program (which you can read about here http://www.goarmy.com/rotc.html) or studying the performing arts, talk to your guidance counselor and see what sort of preparations you’ll have to do before-hand. The last thing you want is to find out when you’re applying that these programs aren’t available to you because you waited too long.

Junior Year  

Junior year is the year you’ve got to get your head in the game. This is the most looked at year by admissions committees on a college application, so you need to.

If this year is getting too stressful, make short-term goals. Sometimes it’s easier to look at getting through a stressful week than a well-known stressful week.

Academics:

1. For those of you who decide to apply to colleges at the early deadlines in November, the end of this year is the last impression colleges will have of you when you apply, so you need to push yourself academically. Try to do the absolute best that you can academically.
2. Since you most likely got all of your graduation requirements done with, this is a year to establish a schedule in areas of interest. For example, if you want to be pre-med, it would be beneficial to double up on science classes, to show your dedication to your major to your colleges of choice.

Testing:

Try to get all of your testing out of the way as early into junior year as possible. Start doing prep and taking actual exams by December to give an adequate amount of time to improve your score. If you believe you are going to be applying to a college that requires or recommends SAT subject tests, make sure to plan for those as well.

Extracurricular Activities:

1. If by this point you have found a few activities that you really enjoy, try to dedicate a bunch of time to them. If you love playing the trumpet, you can play in a myriad of bands, mentor beginner trumpet players, and go to intensives in the summer to help you improve your craft. This sort of strategy allows you not only for tremendous improvement in what you do, but shows colleges your dedication to the activities you involve yourself with.
2. Look into possibly pursuing leadership in the things that you’ve been involved in. No matter how much you doubt yourself about getting a leadership position, just do it. While one of your volleyball teammates with an ego bigger than the Pacific thought they were guaranteed being captain BS’ their speech and is basically not going to be considered, you’ll wish that you had written a speech yourself.

Miscellaneous:

1. If affordable, try to visit some of the colleges that you are interested in. If the visit list is still limited, maybe take a week and go to a couple of concentrated areas with lots of colleges, such as Boston or LA, because there are a variety of different colleges that you can visit in order to get a feel for the type of environment that you would like in a particular college.
2. Stay sane and socialize. Go to a couple of football games. Go to Homecoming, prom, girls ask guys dance. Go to a party, even if you have a lot of homework due on Monday. It will keep your mind clear and sane. You’d be surprised by how much screaming the lyrics of your favorite song can take you out of the stresses of the world and into a happy place.

Senior Year

Academics:

1. If you end up applying to any regular decision deadlines, you will have one-two marking period grades that will be sent to colleges. Just like junior year, it’s another time to impress colleges and show another strong academic record.
2. Remember that even after a college accepts you, they can take back their acceptance if your academic performance is not where they would like it to be, so try to stay focused enough where you can achieve grades of a level that is near your highest performance in high school.

Testing:

If your standardized testing is not already completed, work on getting it completed in the September and October dates.

Extracurricular Activities:

Enjoy being on your sports teams, orchestras, and unique clubs while you can. If you aren’t interested in pursuing these at a collegiate level, this year will be the last that you’ll be able to experience them. Make that last year count.

Miscellaneous:

1. Make sure to dedicate time nightly for your college applications. You don’t want to fall behind on these and not have them at the quality that you like.
2. Visit the colleges that you got accepted to if possible, to help make your final decision of where you’ll be attending college easier.
3. Have fun! Treat yourself for the hard work put in you put in the past 3 ½ years.

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High School Senior's Guide to Making Extracurriculars Extra Meaningful

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.

Leave behind what you don’t.

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.

Leave time for you.

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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