Advice for Incoming Juniors and Seniors

September 1, 2017

At the end of last school year, outgoing senior and junior staff writers shared their best tips and advice about surviving the year. Take note!

Advice for Seniors (from a Current College Freshman)

Nicole Matura, Staff Writer

Finish your standardized testing as soon as possible: The best favor you can do yourself is to be done with your SAT or ACT ahead of time. Yes, it’s painful and mind torturing, but finishing it the earlier, the better. It’s even better if you can get it done over the summer before school starts because then you won’t have to worry about your exam prep overlapping with your school work or college applications. It’s extremely hard to balance all three of those things if they overlap.

Get your wallet ready for fees, fees, and more fees. College Board would literally charge you for breathing if they could, so make sure your parents are aware of the cost of this process, It costs $45 to take the SAT each time ($57 with the essay), $12 to send your scores to your schools, and it could cost up to $80 per school just to apply. If you are eligible for a fee waiver make sure you see Mrs. Blackwell, the financial aid advisor.

Don’t leave filling out your common application and writing/editing your college essay for last minute: The common application will consume a good amount of your life and it’s not like an english assignment that you can just cruise through the night before. Your college essay also should take thought and effort and should be revised by a teacher more than once.

Create a list of safety, target, and reach schools and do not be too confident while doing this: Even if you have good grades, good test scores, a long list of extracurriculars, or a combination of all of these, you don’t know what a college is going to heavily focus on in the admissions process. College admissions advisors go through thousands of applications and their decisions are sometimes even shocking to guidance counselors. Always have your safeties and keep them into consideration.

Visit a bunch of schools you’re interested in early: You can’t really tell if you’re going to like a school until you visit it. Also you should visit schools early because if you end up disliking a school after you visit it, you can easily take it off your list and dodge paying that application fee.

Ask two of your teachers that you know well to write you a letter of recommendation as well as your guidance counselor, if you haven’t done so already: Teachers and counselors are really busy and you don’t want them to have to write a recommendation last minute because you asked very late. If you have requested a teacher recommendation and they haven’t written it by the end of November, keep reminding them.

Keep your grades up: You still need to send mid and final year reports from senior year to your schools so keep your grades up in school because your acceptance into a college can be revoked.

Don’t stress: The college process is made out to be so much more stressful than it should be. All you really need to do is keep up with all the deadlines of the process.In the end your admission decision is in the hands of the admission officers of the schools you applied to. You will end up where you are supposed to end up.

All juniors beware! Don’t be too scared but you’re about to have the most stressful and work filled year of your high school life. With AP classes, SAT’s, ACT’s, and college coming up so soon, what do you do? Well don’t stress too much you still have time to get it all together before the end of your junior year, but for now, just try to get prepared and follow these points of advice:

Involve yourself in in-school and out of school activities: Now I know this might be a little difficult for people who may be a little shy, but step out of your comfort zone. This is the year that you need to do as much as possible because your time to build your resume for college is coming to a close. Do as many community service hours as you possibly can, even though some community service jobs can be a little boring and not something you’re too passionate about, but you can definitely find something that’s more appealing to you. There are hundreds of places in Stamford or areas around Stamford that offer community service opportunities. The Stamford Nature Center has great opportunities all year round, especially in the summer, so do many food kitchens and homeless shelters around Stamford. This is a benefit to you, your future, and all of the people that you help during that time. Along with helping outside of school, you should also get involved in Stamford High School clubs. There are a numerous amount of clubs that you can join in Stamford High, from guitar club, to drama club, to build on. But don’t just devote yourself to helping others and focusing on other people, always remember to have fun! You’re in high school, so enjoy it while you can. Go to football games, pep rallies, school fundraisers, they’re all a fun things to experience while you’re “stuck” in high school.

Work out a schedule for yourself: You’re now at that age of getting a job and getting your license, so that means you’ll need money. Some parents aren’t as generous and lenient with money, so when and if you decide to get your first job just remember to not forget about school because you still have two more years and you can’t just let it go because of a job. Don’t ask your boss for as much hours as possible because trust me, after a few weeks of constantly working, you’ll be sick and tired of that job. Schedule out what you need to do and don’t spread yourself too thin with homework, friends, family, and a job.

DO NOT procrastinate: Yup, this is a hard one, but trust me, if you have AP classes and honors classes, you NEED to stay on track and manage your time as much as you can. Don’t do your work the day before or the period before, yeah you might get it done for third period but it won’t be as good as if you had done it a week ago without rushing. Just manage your time and you’ll be just fine.

DON’T get senioritis your junior year: This was a huge problem for me my junior year. Everything was going great when one day you miss a period, then the next day you decide to skip an art class to go to donut delight, then the next day you miss long because you just don’t feel like going, and then by third quarter you have 40 absences in each class. Not a good idea. Just try your best to stay motivated and stay in school, set goals for yourself throughout the day. Tell yourself that you’ll get donut delight or food from a restaurant you like if you stay in school the whole day (trust me it helps). Just little things will help you not miss that boring class with that lifeless teacher. You’ll have your countless days of skipping when you’re actually a senior.

Get to know your teachers: There might be some really bad teachers that you absolutely hate throughout your high school days, but then there will be some that you’ll love and will miss when you graduate. Teachers can have a big impact on your life and can teach you so many things, academically and just about life in general. Your junior year you really need to get to know your teachers and try your best to click with them. Now sometimes you guys will just not work out and won’t “click” but some teachers will understand you and you’ll end up building a great relationship. Building this relationship will help them get to know you and eventually that will help them write you glowing letter of recommendation for college.