The Wizardry of Junior Year: A Guide to Managing Your Priorities

SAT testing, extracurriculars, AP courses, prom, applying for jobs, volunteer work, getting your driver’s license, and maintaining friendships. All of these things combine to create the most bittersweet era of the high school experience: the dreaded junior year. As you may know, it’s a lot to handle for one person within just ten months, and it is hands-down, the most difficult year, especially considering you are only a year away from sending in applications to your dream schools.

It almost seems impossible, doesn’t it? Staying involved in sports, clubs and work, while still managing your GPA and preparing yourself to receive good scores on all of your exams to keep yourself as “well-rounded” as possible seems like a task designed just for Wonder Woman. Well as challenging as it is, it is also the most critical era, since several of the decisions that you make as well as the outcomes of this school year will have an essential impact on your near future in regards to your college admissions process. As Ben Marcus once wrote, “The impossible is just a blind spot that dissolves if we move our heads fast enough.” So move your heads quickly and learn to master the wizardry of junior year.

Setting Goals for the School Year

A skill that will doubtlessly help you through the rigorous year as well as through the rest of your college admissions journey is setting specific goals for yourself. If you are reading this as a sophomore or as someone about to enter junior year, then you’re right on time to give yourself a head start. Before you start the year, you should try to prepare yourself a “game plan” on what you intend to do and accomplish within the year. You should make a list of all the classes you’ll take and what grades you hope to get in them, the extracurriculars you’ll be participating in and how much time you think you’ll dedicate to them, standardized testing (SATs and ACTs) dates and how much time you’ll devote to studying, and other things that you plan on doing throughout the course of the ten months (such as applying for jobs, volunteer hours, etc). Keep this plan for when you actually attend school in the fall and begin to keep track of what you accomplish and what you don’t. This will help you manage your time and your tasks. Having a clear physical plan for what you want to do will keep you much more organized and relieve the stress and panic of procrastinating to complete things. However, this idea of a plan/agenda will only work effectively if you are totally consistent and determined to do well, so it is absolutely essential to stay focused.

Course Selection

Choosing the right courses in junior year may seem very difficult at first, since a whole new span of options will be made available to you, and you might not know which ones you’ll need. In terms of electives, you should first think about your high school’s graduation requirements, and check to see if you haven’t yet fulfilled some of the required classes. Those classes are the ones you should definitely make sure you enroll in. You should then consider the possible career field that you might want to work with in the future, and select a class or two that correlate with that field. If you’re not sure about the career path you want to follow yet, try signing up for classes that seem interesting to you; definitely do not choose electives that you think you won’t enjoy or be interested in. Now in terms of the levels of difficulty of your classes, you absolutely want to make sure you make the right decisions. You may feel pressured to take 4-5 honors and AP courses, but in most cases, this probably won’t be the right thing to do. Taking challenging classes is obviously something that you should consider in your junior year, as it is something that college admission offices pay close attention to. However, there is always a limit to the amount of rigor that one can handle. Keep in mind when selecting your courses that you’ll need time throughout your days to do other things such as sports or other extracurricular activities. A good amount of AP classes for junior year might be 2-3, depending on your daily schedule and academic interests. When you’re up at 2:00am finishing your AP Bio paper, there’s no doubt that you’ll thank yourself for not taking on that extra AP course.

Beginning the College Search

If you’re a junior and still don’t know what kinds of colleges and schools you want to go to/ apply to, now is the perfect time to start looking. It’s extremely important that you have, at the very least, a general idea of what schools you are looking for before senior year comes around, as you’ll spend the majority of your first semester and the summer before you’re a senior preparing your applications. It may seem slightly difficult to decide what you want to do with your future when it seems so far away in time, but once you’ve indulged yourself in research, you’ll have a much more distinct image of what you want, and your search will become much simpler. You should start by considering all of the contributing elements: location (in-state or out-of-state), type of school (private/public), size, academic programs, intended major(s), cost, financial aid, etc. Many of these you’ll be able to decide yourself, but some may have to be discussed with your counselor or your family before anything is set in stone. It is important that you take as much time as you need to deeply consider which colleges you’ll apply to so that you’ll make the right decision when choosing which one you’ll attend after you graduate. Do not make any impulsive decisions to apply for a school without doing plenty of research beforehand, and do not wait to start looking.

Time Management

As you’re experiencing your junior year adventure, you’ll realize that time management will become more and more difficult to maintain. One thing to keep in mind in order to avoid this from interfering with your grades and academic performance is to not procrastinate. So be efficient, put all distractions aside, complete your work on time, get your projects out of the way, and have all the leisure time you need when you're finished. Trust me on this; it's a lot more satisfying to relax knowing that you've finished all your school work for the day. Try your best to balance school work, extracurriculars, and personal free time. A great tool to keep track of all of your assignments is The HW App, which is available in the Apple Store.

Your Best Friends: Your Counselor and Teachers

Keeping in contact with your counselor and your teachers throughout this year is crucial to your application journey, since these are the people that will be writing your recommendation letters required in your college and scholarship applications. Frequently visiting your counselor to discuss college plans will show him/her that you are serious about getting a higher education, and will give him/her more great things to write about if they decide to write you a letter. Counselors are also one of the best college and education resources that you'll ever have, they'll tell you anything that you need to know about the schools you want to attend, the careers you intend on pursuing, and the classes you'll need to take in high school to get where you want to be. So never be afraid to consult with them and build relationships with them! It's also important that you stay on your teachers’ good sides, since they are the people that observe your dedication and hard work in the classroom, which is something colleges really consider when looking through applications. Remember that although it may not always seem like it, your school’s faculty is always on your side, and will do anything to help you become what you aspire to be.

Self-Motivation and Effort

You will only succeed as far as you’ll allow yourself to be pushed. Being your own number one supporter and motivator is a major key to tackling obstacles such as junior year. You must make yourself want to do well and want to succeed; you won’t get as far as you are able to by telling yourself that you need to do things. You have to want to do them. Put all the effort that you have into each and every one of your assignments, and constantly remind yourself that you’ll succeed if you try your best. Yes, it will be very tiring and time-consuming, and sometimes you’ll want to just BS all of your assignments and take a nap. But keep in mind that hard work will always pay off. Not only will self-dedication help you through the year, it will help you to strive to do better in all of your life obstacles that await your future. You do not want to look back your senior year regretting your grade in a class that lowered your GPA, or disrespecting a potential recommendation letter writer.

So Maybe it’s Not that Hard

Maybe referring to this year as some mysterious sorcery is a bit of an exaggeration. It may seem that way at first, but trust me, you’ll get through it. It’s all a matter of consistency, perseverance, and hard work. As long as you stay focused and keep your goals in mind, you won’t need a magic wand to keep you sane.

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http://www.theshare.cn/article/detailp/2994

http://fosteredu.pennfoster.edu/a-closer-look-at-how-the-guidance-counselor-crisis-affects-students

The "Getting In" Podcast: Why It's Worth the Listen

 

If you haven’t heard, Getting In is a podcast by Slate Magazine’s Panoply podcast network, and it’s all about the college admissions process. Hosted by Julie Lythcott-Haims, former dean of freshmen and undergraduate advising at Stanford University, this podcast is a gold mine for anybody who wants a closer look at the college admissions process.

The podcast follows the path of a group of high school seniors throughout their last year of high school… in real time. Everything is unfiltered, and it’s refreshing to see the ups and downs of each student. This podcast is as real as it gets. It’s described as “your college admissions companion,” and I would highly recommend the podcast to high school juniors, who will make the most of the advice. And here’s why.

 The Emotions:

The most memorable episode of Getting In was when one of the seniors opened her response letter from her dream school and recorded it. I could definitely tell she was nervous, and I felt it with her. And then I felt it even more as she read off her own rejection. That’s what makes the podcast all so real. Each senior in the group has their own character, background, goals, and struggles. After all, they are all real students going through a momentous part of their lives. This feature resonates with me because it’s all so relatable.

The Advice:

In the college application process, almost nothing is definite. But it’s reassuring to have tons of advice from college experts; Getting In provides just that. As a companion to the main episodes with student check-ins, the podcast includes Q&A sessions with former college admissions officers and college counselors of highly esteemed schools. All advice can be validated by experts with years of experience under their belts. All sorts of questions are answered about extracurriculars, future planning, test-optional schools, interviews, financial aid, and so much more. The fact that most of the questions are asked by the seniors themselves or listeners who have called in tops it all off because there were questions answered that I know I had.

The Message:

One of my favorite things about Getting In is the genuineness behind the message every expert is conveying. Over and over, they reiterate the same idea that getting into college isn’t about getting into the school your mom can brag about at family reunions. It’s about finding the right college for you, meaning a college you will excel at and love. This is too often overlooked by other sources of advice. There has to be something about a college that draws you to it besides its prestige, and the podcast conveys this in an inspiring way. While still providing the information you need to get into prestigious schools, it advocates for a future with happiness and growth in the picture.

Listening to Getting In has been one of the best things I have done so far in my college applications process. The podcast has given me a new outlook on where I want to be in regards to college. I could not recommend this podcast more to any prospective students out there who are willing to take a quick listen!

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College Search Websites You Need to Be Using

If you are a high school student in any grade, you most likely have been asked about college.  For example, ‘Where do you want to go?’and ‘What do you want to do?’.  Presumably, unless you are a senior in your second semester, you do not know the answers to these questions.  Luckily, these websites and apps are here to help.  Whether you are looking for colleges that match the criteria you want or majors that might interest you, at least one of these websites will have what you are looking for. Not only is it important to find what you want in a specific college, but it is important to get your name out to colleges.  Signing up with these websites will put you out there, and colleges that are interested in you can get into contact with you, making it easier to have an idea on where to apply senior year.

I started signing up for websites like these ones the summer before my freshman year of high school.  That way, when I wanted and needed to start looking into colleges, I already had a basic account set up with all my information.  Because I signed up for websites, I started receiving letters and emails from colleges that were already interested in me, before I had even started high school!  I highly recommend all of these websites, as they are great ways to fuel your college search.

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Big Future (bigfuture.collegeboard.com)

CollegeBoard is the owner of the Big Future website as well as the SAT, PSAT, and AP tests and classes.  Big Future has a college search engine where you put in factors that you want in a college, for example: size, location, majors, selectivity, and diversity.  It goes through all the schools in it’s database and picks out the ones that match what you want.  After you search, you can then pick specific schools to look more in-depth in.  Big Future provides average GPA, average test scores, what the campus life is like, average cost, deadlines you need to know, and more.  Big Future also provides inside looks into different careers and majors, planning tools to help you get on the right track for colleges, and has information about financial aid and affording college.

Cappex (cappex.com)

Cappex is a great way to connect with colleges.  Colleges can send you messages through this site and if you state that you are interested in a specific school, Cappex will connect your profile with that school.  Cappex is interesting because you can see your chances of getting into a certain school.  Cappex provides statistics for average test scores, an admissions scattergram, campus life, your fit at that school based on criteria you enter into your profile, and tuition and costs.  Cappex also has a quiz you take to see what majors or careers are right based on your personality and a tab where you can find scholarships.

College Raptor (collegeraptor.com)

College Raptor also has a college search engine. You put in information such as GPA, test scores, financial information, and intended major and it matches you to schools that have what you want.  It also provides if the school is a reach, target, or safety school.  (Safety: a school you will probably get into for sure, target: you have about a fifty percent chance of getting in, and reach: it is a stretch to get in, but it might happen.)  This site gives you an approximate percentage of the chance you have getting into a school and you can add schools you are interested in to your college list.  College Raptor also provides statistics for each school and has a blog page and a YouTube channel.

Niche (colleges.niche.com)

Niche (formerly collegeprowler) has many great factors including a feature called “Chance Me”.  Chance Me basically allows other students to look at you GPA, test scores, extracurriculars, and basic information to determine how good of a chance you have of getting into a certain college.  Niche also ranks the colleges with scores ranging from A+ to F.  You can find scholarships you are interested in and compare colleges side by side with their compare tool.  They also give you recommendations of colleges you might be interested based on your profile and schools you have already added and connect you with the colleges you are interested in.

Raise.me (raise.me)

Raise.me can also be a considered a college search engine, but is actually a scholarship website.  This website gives micro-scholarships for simple things you have completed in high school, such as getting an A in a class, scoring well on the ACT/SAT, participating in an extracurricular activity, volunteering, and participating in a college event.  If you choose to go to a school that participates with Raise.me, they add the scholarships into your financial aid package.  Not every college participates, but many are being added every day.  (One school has given me $45,030, which is $11,258 per year!

Schoold (get the app at schoold.co)

Schoold is an app that can also aid you in your college search.  It is not very in-depth, but if someone mentions a college, you can quickly look it up and learn some information about the school.  If you add them on Snapchat, they give snapchat tours of different colleges and give away scholarships.  You can also find careers, majors, and scholarships right on the app and Schoold gives you an approximate percentage of your chance of getting into different schools.

It is important to take the college admissions predictions from these websites with a grain of salt. Do not let yourself be discouraged if a website tells you that you do not have a good chance of admission at one of your dream Universities. It is important to still apply and see what happens, you never know.

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Of SAT Scores and Self-Worth: Realizing Your Value When the Pressure is On

“This is it. I might as well just kiss my dreams goodbye and say hello to community college, because with these scores, it looks like that’s where I’m headed.”

Those words are verbatim from what one of my close friends told me in an emotional phone call back in May, when scores for the March 2016 administration of the SAT were released. She was absolutely devastated because her scores were not where she wanted them to be, and had overanalyzed everything that could have gone wrong: her nerves distracting her during the test, fallible study methods, and even the incessant ticking of the clock that had been hung on the back wall of the classroom.

Her statements to me, albeit on the dramatic side, are similar to the panicky thoughts that a lot of rising seniors, including myself, are having as the new school year quickly approaches. With the notion of not being good enough for colleges when it comes to standardized testing constantly looming over students’ heads, it is easy to see why so many get caught up in and are discouraged by their scores.

Headfirst Into the Abyss

It is the case for many students to feel as though they have been suddenly thrown into the real world without a parachute during their final two years of high school. I remember having a breakdown near the end of my junior year regarding my own future as I signed up for standardized testing, feeling like I wasn’t adequately prepared for the heavy expectations of the future.

We are taught that standardized test scores are the foundation of a college application and that if they are not satisfactory, our chances of getting into the university that we desire go down exponentially. Our parents shell out the hefty fees for the SAT and ACT and we walk into our testing rooms on the assigned dates with the frightening idea that our futures are dependent on a mere few hours full of scribbling inside of small bubbles and reading passages that we will later joke about on social media in order to ease our stress.

When scores are finally sent out after a nail-biting period of time, students are sent into a frenzy and adolescents pace the floors of their bedrooms in panic. The fact that so many of us are petrified of checking our scores in fear that our aspirations will crumble in front of their eyes is heartbreaking, for we should not believe that simple numbers on a computer screen dictate the rest of our lives.

We do not have to allow ourselves to be hindered by outrageous expectations. We have the power to set standards for ourselves and be comfortable with who we are, not who we are not.

The Value of Valuing Yourself

There is a saying that goes, “It is not what you are that holds you back, it is what you think you are not.”  I love the way that Maimuna Abdi Yussuf puts it in her article, Dear Rafiki, You Are Not Your SAT Score, in which she states that nothing is really what it appears to be and that everything is what you make of it, meaning that you should not take your scores at face-value and should instead use them as merely a catalyst that will propel you into your future that will mean so much more in the long run than what you made on your SAT.  I reiterated this to my anxious friend, and asked for her to remember everything that she has accomplished over the duration of her high school career; when she finished her list (and boy, was it long), she was wiping away her stress-induced tears and reaffirming the validity of her dreams.

I am writing this to tell you, whether you are an upcoming freshman just beginning to get your feet wet in the depths of high school or a senior feeling like you are about to drown, that your standardized test scores do not define you as a person. As human beings, we are sums of many parts, and as students, we have a lot more to put on college applications than our scores on a couple of cumulative tests.

The journey to realize your self-worth can be a hard one, especially when us students are being pitted against each other all the time when it comes to things like class rankings and test scores, but it is necessary to go down that path because it is ultimately up to you to make the decision of whether you will allow your test scores to represent you as a whole or not.

Here are a few things to keep in mind as you begin your quest for self-worth:

1. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

It’s an old mantra, but an important step in realizing your self-worth is becoming aware that when you are not satisfied with something, you have the ability to change that. Even if you refuse to allow your test scores to define you as a person, it is important to know that you are in complete control of how you handle them. Be proactive. Skip the nervous breakdown and sign up for the next scheduled test. Find study methods that work for you. Make a study schedule and stick to it. It truly is simple; as long as you pace yourself and work hard, the results will come. Don’t focus on the scores that you didn’t get; concentrate on those you did instead, for you made them yourself with your own hard work and effort and you should be proud of them no matter what.

2. Don’t take the bait of others.

Many students are of the Type-A personality: ambitious, competitive, and aggressive. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but the problems come when they need constant validation, like that one friend in your English class who always turns to you and asks what you made on the most recent test when they know that they completely aced it and that you struggled with it a bit. People like these are always trying to find ways to fuel the rat race that exists in all schools, but you have the ability to keep yourself out of it. Know that your standards may not match up with theirs, and that it is completely possible that what they think is horrible may be perfectly adequate to you. As long as you are happy with your scores and the progress that you are making, what they think should not matter to you. If they ask you how you did on your standardized tests, you have the right to keep the actual numbers to yourself and tell them that you are satisfied with what you made instead.

3. Remember everything else that you can bring to the table.

Let’s face it: anybody can be in the top ten of their class or make above a 30 on the ACT. In order to truly value yourself, you have to keep what makes you unique in mind. For example, you may not have the highest test scores, but you’re the surefire editor of you school’s popular newspaper, or maybe you’re a piano virtuoso behind the scenes. Colleges do not only look at your scores, but at your extracurriculars as well. They want to know if you can contribute something extra to the school and that you aren’t just another intelligent student who is going to graduate with nothing to provide them with except another brain. If you are a well-rounded student, you don’t necessarily have to have the best test scores or fall in the top five percent of your class; you just have to be aware of your assets and use them to your advantage by putting as much emphasis on them as you can. Colleges don’t look for perfect students because there would be no reason for them to further their educations if they were on that level. They instead search for students with unique perspectives and experiences who can further the minds of the people around them.

Whenever you are in doubt of yourself, recall this advice and the fact that standardized tests do not measure your worth as a human being. You are so much more than the answers that you bubble in inside of a testing room. As long as you try your best, it is impossible for you to be labeled as a disappointment. You have so much more to contribute to the world, and as long as you are determined and assert yourself, you are definitely bound to make changes in it.

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PHOTO CREDIT:

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Oh, The Places I'll Go: A Guide to Selecting Where to Apply for College

There’s so many college choices, but you can only choose one...

Choosing a college to go to is probably one of the major parts of your college application journey and also the most important.  You’re going to be studying there for just about 4 years so you want to choose wisely! When choosing a college, you also have to make compromises.  A college isn’t going to have everything you want.  You have to compare and contrast the general information, major and minor selection, extracurricular activities, the location, and lastly the tuition.  All the researching can be overwhelming so grab a notebook and a writing utensil so we can get started.

Finding a Major!

First, you want to decide on what you want to major in.  Think about what you are passionate about and not what your friends or family suggest you should do.

It’s good to know what you want to major in before hand because when searching for colleges, it can help you narrow down the schools you wish to go to.

However, some students have no idea what they want to major in and decide to apply to schools under undecided.

What If I’m Undecided?

If you have no clue on what you want to major in, there are plenty of quizzes online to help you decide.  Loyola University Chicago, Marquette University, Saint Louis University, and Buzz Feed offers quizzes to help.

If you’re still unsure, many colleges allow you to apply as an undecided major. This means that you will take your general classes and then declare your major after your freshman or sophomore year of college.

For those who do not want to take that route, I recommend taking a gap year. This is when you do not enroll in college after high school graduation. You take the year off to pursue community service, travel, working, or another quality use of your time. Most colleges will expect you to explain why you took a gap year so do not take this time to be unproductive.

If you’re not interested in taking a gap year, going to a community college for the first year is also a great alternative because you can get all (or most) of your general courses out of the way and save plenty of money.  Your class credits then transfers over with you to the college/university you decide to attend.

 Finding General Information

The next step is to start on building a foundation for your college list.  The best way to start is to Google, “Top (insert major name) Schools” and pick about no more than 10 from the list in which you can begin to conduct research on. To begin research, you want to start off by noting the general information: the tuition, acceptance rate, graduation rate, location, size, and other important factors to consider. Doing so will help you get an idea on what you’re looking for.

Also, a good way to see “the campus life” is by finding on YouTube if anyone vlogs (a vlog is when someone basically shows what they're doing during the day/week) their college experience, seeing if someone does a campus tour, watching a Q&A about the school, and things in that nature.  Keesha Kaylee and Brelynn both are vloggers at Spelman College.  Nia Imani is a Hampton University vlogger. Queen Chioma is a Toledo University vlogger. Amber Martin is a vlogger at the University of Tennessee, and of course there are others!  If you look, you can possibly find someone that vlogs at a school you’re interested in.

Location! Location! Location!

Another important thing to research while creating your list is researching the location!   It’s good to know about the areas you are and are not interested in living in. If you love the city life, going to school in a rural area for 4 years most likely wouldn’t make you happy.

Another important factor of location is climate. It is up to you to decide if you want to spend your time studying near the beach or in the snow!

Extracurricular Activities

Try to research the activities and clubs that the colleges you are interested in offer. Participating in extracurriculars will make your college experience so much better!  You can pledge to a sorority/fraternity, participate in intramural or varsity sports, join the dance team or band, join clubs, or participate in community service activities with the school.

If you are interested in playing a sport it is important to see that the schools you are interested offer that sport. There are requirements for the NCAA as well as just intramural sports.

Studying Abroad

If studying abroad is also something you thought about participating in, you want to make sure your school offers that program!  Studying abroad is a good way for you to travel the world and learn about different cultures.

 The Fun Word Called “Tuition”

The last thing I want to mention is tuition.  I put this one last because personally I don’t think this is so important when you’re only creating a list.  Many schools do offer scholarships/grants when you receive your acceptance letter.  You will never know until you apply so don’t miss out due to the price.

You also want to keep in mind that there is still the possibility that you may not get money to help cover your tuition or that the money you receive isn’t enough so it’s a good idea to have 3-4 in-state schools on your list that you wouldn’t mind attending. These offer in-state tuition which is cheaper for those that live in the state that those who live outside of the state.

So remember, when starting to create your list, you want to know your major, have a foundation of schools to start your research on, learn about the location, discover the extracurricular activities, and to know that tuition shouldn’t be the number one factor!