February-March 2016 Junior College Readiness 1

This is a busy time of year for juniors. Please help them get ready for college by heeding our tips, so they can move strongly into college application season.

• College visits: Tell students to visit colleges during spring vacation and other school days off. Avoid weekends. Book tours, information sessions, class visits, overnights, interviews, and visits with current students. Many groups of colleges and along with the NACAC college fairs will come to your towns. Take pictures to help you remember each visit

• Testing: Juniors are living in the wild west of testing this year with the new SAT coming out in March and many colleges making both the ACT and SAT essay section option.
  • We recommend every junior prioritize the ACT this year as it is known and the SAT will be delayed in reporting scores. They will get better with ACT timing as their brains develop.
  • No matter what all students should take the writing sections as many top colleges are requiring them.
  • Help students develop their testing schedule. SAT. ACT. SAT Subject Tests, AP tests. Plan to take each one, except the AP tests, at least two times this spring. Sophomore and juniors should look to see which Subject Tests they could take this spring. While fewer colleges are requiring them, these hour long tests are a great additional tool to help students reveal their academic talents to colleges.
  • Practice, practice, practice. Becoming better at testing requires rehearsals and practices. Like athletics and artists, we never go under-prepared. So practice.

• College research: Help juniors use the resources around them to research colleges. They can find maps, major finders, online campus tours, and more. There are many online college fairs and workshops.

• Social media privacy: Make sure kids make their social media accounts private. More and more colleges claim they are checking with applicants’ social media. Why, I have no idea. Applicants should rename their account. Their sites should show no information to anyone who is not a friend.

• Senior year schedules. Many schools have kids pick classes for senior year in February and March. Make sure kids do not give up core content areas. Kids need a full schedule that is as hard and challenging as possible.

• Leadership roles. Please make sure you encourage students to take on leadership roles in their activities. Colleges are looking for kids who take initiative and who are leaders. Look for ways to expand current organizations and lead them in new and creative ways.

• Powerful summers. Remember colleges expect students to be as productive as possible during their summers. They can use summers for taking college classes, working, volunteering, doing an internship, studying for the SAT/ACT. There are great summer programs for all students. Applications are due soon.