Tip 1: Test Deadlines
If you’re a junior, you should be looking at your PSAT scores and getting ready to take the SAT or ACT (or both) at least twice this spring. The SAT is offered in March, May, and June, while the ACT is offered in February, April, June, and July. Plan out your schedule (perhaps around AP exams in May) to give yourself at least two chances. I always encourage my clients to get the tests out of the way before summer if at all possible.
Tip 2: Application Cycle
Once you have your test scores where you need them, you’ll want to start looking more heavily into colleges. Hopefully you’ve already started thinking about what sort of school you want to go to. Big Future is a tool that can help you narrow your search based on whatever criteria matter to you. Over the spring, you should be developing your college list, and over the summer you should be doing college visits and starting your application essays. The first deadlines are in October! They come very early. Keep in mind that your essays are even more crucial if you’re applying test optional. Applying ED can vastly increase your chances of admittance, but it takes good planning well in advance to be ready by early in your senior year.
Tip 3: GPA
You may know that your GPA is the most important number in your entire application. Yes, even more important than your test scores. Your junior and senior year GPAs are the most crucial of all. Many schools will ignore a poor freshman year (some don’t even count it in their calculations), but they look very closely at your 11th-12th grade GPAs to see how you’ve developed over high school and how strong a candidate you might be. You should also be trying to take a broad range of difficult classes, including AP and IB courses, as many schools look for these classes and even weight the grades from them more heavily.
Tip 4: Summer Programs
If you are looking to stand out on your applications, I strongly encourage you to think ahead over this year about how you can get involved in a summer internship, explore a new skill, pursue advanced study, publish a paper or a poem, or otherwise illustrate to colleges that you are passionate about your interests outside of school. Remember, you don’t need to be well-rounded so much as you need to show a deep engagement with a particular subject and be able to reflect on it thoughtfully and with self-awareness.