Hey, Juniors
Hey, Juniors. Fall is here (culturally, if not seasonally)! Whether you know exactly what you’d love to study in college and where or don’t even know where to start, this one’s for you.
College is an exciting opportunity to take agency (and risks), define your path, and harness your strengths and skills in a tangible way. The beauty is that you get to do so alongside peers who are in the exact same life moment. Sure, there is work ahead of you, and stress of course, but there is also the thrill of embarking upon something new. So, try to look ahead not with paralysis and anxiety but with excitement: this is a time of exploration and discovery.
Whether we’ve convinced you to choose hope and optimism — or not — here are a few things that you should be thinking about in the short- and medium-term:
Course Plan: Does your junior year course plan set you up for success and support the major(s) you think you might want to explore? If not, make changes now. You should ask yourself these types of questions:
Is your schedule so rigorous that you risk tanking your GPA? Maybe you need to scale from five APs to four. Just bear in mind that you should be taking a minimum of five academic solids, one in each discipline (math, English, history, foreign language, and science).
Think you might want to consider engineering after all? Maybe you need to scale up, taking honors math over standard this year.
Now is also the time to consider what you might want to take senior year, and make sure you have the required grades and prerequisites to allow for that. In short, take the most rigorous schedule you can manage without compromising your GPA.
Pro tip: Admissions officers know what’s up; if the course has a reputation of being easy or sounds flimsy in the course catalog, they will probably read it that way too. You aren’t tricking anyone. (Sorry.)
Testing Plan: If you haven’t yet picked your test (ACT or SAT), registered for 3–4 test dates over the course of your junior year, and started prep (or at least have a plan for prep), now is the time to:
Take a practice test of each test
Pick your poison
Get registered
Start studying.
Pro tip: You are better off planning to have a (competitive) score than assuming you won’t need to test, especially if you are a STEM applicant or think you might be.
Narrative Development: When you write your applications, you will encounter essay prompts that fit into types. You will very likely need to write about your academic curiosities and goals, how/why institution X is a match for you, your community engagement to date and/or an issue that matters to you, and your leadership experience. So, the question is: do you have enough substance to write about each of these topics? If not, now is the time to change this. For example:
Apply for a leadership role
Engage in community service
Find ways to pursue your academic interests beyond the classroom, including a passion project.
Pro tip: As much as we hate to say it, start thinking about a plan for next summer as some programs open their applications in the late fall or early winter. (Yeah, we know.)
College List: You will need one, and by this time next year, it should be pretty finalized. So, where to start?
Make a list of your fit criteria, sorting by need-to-haves and nice-to-haves. Be specific and honest but not so rigid that you limit your list to 2–3 schools.
Come up with an initial list of colleges to research based on these parameters; you might need your advisor to help you with this.
Start learning about these schools through a combination of their websites, third-party websites, and friends/family who are alumni or current students. Take notes as you go and sort that initial list into three piles: yes, maybe, no. (Hint: You will almost definitely re-sort schools as you move through the process.)
Rinse and repeat.
If you do this a few times with 2–3 sets of schools, you should be able to come up with a list of high-priority schools that you would like to visit. Plan visits, as your schedule and budget allow, opting for virtual when/if necessary. Update your list as you see schools and adjust your fit criteria. This is an iterative process so keep at it.
Pro tip: Your early lists will probably be reach-heavy. This is normal but do make sure you relativize your standards to ensure that some likely and target schools make the cut.
Still there, Juniors? Great, so are we.
