Getting In and Beyond

College app season really hits off in the summer (and not in the fall). Put the right foot forward with this suggested list of things to do the summer before your senior year! 1. Make a significant dent into those college app essays. Most colleges release their supplemental prompts and essays during this time. Get on top of those so as to avoid procrastination during the school year! If most of your schools are through the Common Application, then it's probably in your best interest to prioritize that big one over the smaller ones. I'll have some advice about writing your college essays in a later post, so be on a lookout for that! 2. Get a job, internship, and/or some career-related experience. Now that you shouldn't  have to worry about standardized testing (more on that later), you can actually focus on earning money or gaining valuable experience and perspective on what you want to do in the future. For example, I got a job as a cashier at my local grocery st...

Don't be the person that finds themselves in the beginning of senior year without any sense of what they want to do in college, or even worse: not knowing where to apply and how to go about it. The process for college applications starts earlier than your senior year (like, way earlier), so here are some helpful tips for tackling junior year in regards to the college application process. 1. Take the SAT or ACT Seriously, get this done!!! You DO NOT want to be worrying about standardized testing the summer before your senior year and certainly not when you're in the middle of college apps. Unfortunately, it's tough to really take it super seriously now, but it pays off. For some selective schools (you'll need to do some research on this), the admissions counselors are also looking to see you perform well on certain SAT Subject Tests, which requires special preparation. 2. Talk to teachers about recommendation letters. You obviously shouldn't do this u...