College applications are stressful for everyone, but thankfully, with a bit of preparation in your junior year, you can make the process much easier. But the thing that is hard is that there are no ‘hard’ deadlines in Junior year. It is the time to leverage your self-determination and organizational skills to pursue leadership, excel academically, and build relationships.
Courses
We recommend taking as many AP / Honors courses as you can reasonably manage. This is the last year that colleges will see full grades for when you apply, so make it count. Choose your AP / Honors courses wisely; try to pick classes that really interest you—it’ll be easier to do well in them and it’ll help craft your narrative.
Build your schedule around whatever you want to do: if you’d like to be a Spanish Major, be sure to take AP Spanish, or whatever the highest level of Spanish is that is offered at your school. If you’re more interested in medicine, take AP Biology. If you don’t quite know yet—which is fine, by the way—just take as many higher-level courses as you can manage so that you can sample a variety of subjects.
Standardized Tests
If you haven’t already taken the ACT/SAT, take them during your junior year. We know, we know. Everything is test-optional now. Our clients are still taking the tests, doing well on them, and submitting them.
Study for the SAT/ACT on your own or with a tutor, you can find a variety of resources online that will help you prepare.
Extra Curriculars
This is the best time to pursue leadership roles in the clubs and activities you participate in. Run for positions in the clubs that you really like: having a few leadership positions is better than being a ‘member’ of a ton of orgs. If you don’t have many extracurriculars, develop your interests. We have all of our students develop niche interests. If you think you’re interested in Biology, take a few online courses and join clubs to figure out which niche within biology you are interested in. Some people love animals; some love plants. We help all of our students figure out their micro-niche—joining a bunch of clubs and padding your resume does not help you get into a top-tier school.
If you’re involved in too many clubs, think about cutting down your participation to a few, more important, organizations. We are going for quality over quantity here. Joining too many clubs will waste your time and prevent you from really excelling with any one role. It’ll also prevent you from showing your true interest. Don’t spread yourself too thin.
Relationships
You should develop a connection with your college counselor/guidance counselor if you haven’t yet. They’ll be a great ally during your application process, and it’s best to have them in your corner as soon as possible. Similarly, you should think about which teachers could write good recommendations for you. Ask them for those recs in March or April so that they have time to plan.
College Planning
You should also build out a college list and start visiting schools. Try to see as many schools as you can and think about what you liked/disliked about each one. You want to have a list of 8-12 schools for your eventual applications. Think about what’s realistic for you based on your GPA, scores, and extracurriculars, and run your list by your parents and guidance counselor.
Visit the schools on your list and start crossing out the places you dislike (trust us, there’ll be some). Think about what you value in a school—urban or rural, liberal arts or state university—and build your list to fit your preferences.
Most importantly, enjoy yourself. Keep a healthy balance with activities, courses, and self-care—don’t burn yourself out taking 10 AP courses. Junior year is a time to prepare, but it should also be fun.
Junior year is billed as “the college year” but it is really just a big logistics year so the biggest thing to do is to get your ducks in a row. Your hard deadlines aren’t until Senior year so junior year is really about self determination and organizational skills. Go through all the things that you have to do junior year and when they should get done. Similar to post #1 but word and structure differently.
If you have any further questions, or would like to discuss junior-year advising with us, please feel free to reach out to us here.