Did anyone sacrifice it all junior year?

Test Preparation AP Test Preparation
21

<p>Senior year is much worse, trust me.
Junior year was great for me. AP classes + SAT + 4 clubs + volunteering + youth symphony = not that bad. I actually had my highest averages junior year </p>

<p>Senior year: mad studying for the October retake, more APs, more clubs/leadership, college essays and applications, and that one SAT II test I put off till the fall. All this to be done before December 30th, in the cold grey season of winter.</p>

<p>Tip: seriously, write your college essays in June.</p>

22

<p>I have a tiger mom, so I never had much of a social life to begin with. Surprisingly enough with 3 AP classes, 4 AP tests to take, and 3 pre-AP classes, I ended up doing the opposite Junior year. </p>

<p>Actually, part of it was in thanks to CC - I went from the CC panic of “Oh my God, I never knew I was this crappy of a student/person…why didn’t anyone tell me that there are people out there who are so much more articulate/unique/exceptional/brilliant/well-rounded than I am and why is this freshman asking if he should retake a 2300 when I haven’t even passed the 2000 mark” to, “Well okay, if the Vals/2400s can get rejected from the top schools in their country, why am I, who is clinging to #10 and barely at 2200, going to cling to my Ivy viewbooks and sob over my ‘mediocrity’ and beat myself up over not being a perfect student.”</p>

<p>I was that kid, whining, “I hate high school, it’s so lame, why do I do all the work and get none of the fun, my teachers are dumber than I am, why don’t I just graduate early anyway.” I realized this year that I want a high school experience I can look back to and not cringe over. Just like any other situation in your life - it is what you make of it.</p>

<p>This became the year of telling my mother, “Going to the library/Staying after school for service hours/tutorials” when in reality, I was sneaking free drinks via water cups at Jack in the Box with my closest friends and trying to find monasteries to check out. For the first time in my life I snuck out, hung out with my friends til 4 am while my mom thought I was sleeping, had sleepovers before debate competitions, etc. and I am a very happy camper. I’m so much more outgoing, and more involved with the kids in school I wouldn’t bother to speak to if we didn’t have a class together (which helped me snag Student Body Prez for next year; be nice to the “regular” kids!). I’m doing things because I enjoy them, not because it’s what you’re supposed to do to get into a great school.</p>

<p>Junior year is not the time to be reckless or slack off /in the slightest/, but you should work hard, AND play hard. I spend less time trying to make sure every little assignment is done and redone to perfection, retook the SATs without studying and went up 290 points by my third try. I’m a more efficient studier because I don’t try to predict every single possible question that’ll show up on tests, nor do I read my textbooks word for word. </p>

<p>As important as it is to keep up with all this college prep stuff and to be aware of your future and do what it takes to get where you want to be, overstressing and psyching yourself out will hurt you more than help. I feel sooo much better about school than I ever did, and I’d have never thought I’d get there by having more fun.</p>

23

<p>My junior year wasn’t bad. Only 3 AP exams. My senior year, however, was a nightmare. 3 AP classes, 4 dual enrollment classes, and a job on top of that. Also I’m just finding out that I have anemia. So pretty much I just slept and work. No spare time at all last year. Thankfully the clubs I was in didn’t take like any time away from me. Not to mention all the college shenanigans, having no clue what to pick for a major, and retaking the ACT.</p>

24

<p>It pretty much comes down to this:</p>

<p>Pick 2</p>

<p>Sleep
Social Life
Good Grades</p>

<p>Pretty much always chose the last choice and switched off between the first two, though usually, more towards social life lol. I just HAD to be a facebook addict that year too…</p>

25

<p>After Freshman year, I pretty much stopped playing video games.
After sophomore year, I stopped watching TV.
Midway through Junior year I went from 8-9 hours of sleep a night to 5-6.
But I still kept my social life and got straight A’s while doing it!
I love it, Tv and other distractions were a waste of time anyway.</p>

26

<p>@bluedevils31</p>

<p>I bought The Real ACT Prep Guide. It had 3 real ACT tests in them and it was really good for describing the layout of the test and testing your skills.</p>

<p>As for my AP tests, I didn’t actually buy any material to study, especially APUSH. But my AP Lang teacher did give us handouts that were from a Princeton Review. “Cracking the AP English Language & Composition Exam 2011 Edition.”</p>

<p>APUSH I didn’t study at all, but my teacher gave us periodic handouts from a book that I never learned the name of. The Princeton Review also has an APUSH practice book like AP LANG that you might wanna check out.</p>

27

<p>Ohhh great. I’ll be a junior next year. I’m not really dreading classes, it’s just… balancing them with everything else.
Any advice?</p>

28

<p>The hours and hours if studying… struggling to balance a year round sport and advanced studies… not even going to sleep some nights… and it’s still not really over. </p>

<p>This year has been hell, but I wouldn’t have done it any other way. I may or may not get where I really want to be in the end. But not matter the outcome, I’ll be satisfied because at least I know I tried my absolute hardest.</p>

29

<p>Yep. I did it. It wasn’t fun self-studying 8 APs, busting out a 2350+ SAT, and starting and finishing a community service project, all while moving from 7th in the class to 2nd, but I mean sometimes you gotta “just do it.”</p>

<p>When it’s all over you’ll look back at junior year and laugh at your silliness, but with the acceptance to a dream school in your pocket that’s easy to do… Stanford 2015 and trust me I have not stopped slacking and partying since that fateful day in late March. </p>

<p>Look at it this way: 1 year is nothing compared to your whole life. </p>

<p>Good luck rising juniors. The classes of '15 and '16 salute you.</p>

30

<p>@yankees 20, congrats man. howd you find the time to self study 8 aps? im having trouble with like self studying 6 man. and which ones did you self study, with which books?</p>

31

<p>Junior year was a breeze. Two easy AP tests and no self-studying for the ACT allowed me to get my 8hrs, good grades, and social life. It’s the over-achieving that kills, but at that point the effort is almost always worth it.</p>

32

<p>Did I sacrifice myself excessively junior year? It sure felt like it at the time, but looking back I don’t think I did. I still had time for fun: a social life, tv, video games, etc. (it was primarily on non-math-competition weekends). Still, it was definitely the most workload-heavy and stressful year of hs.</p>

<p>I had 4 AP classes (US History, English Language, Psychology, Physics B) and 3 honors classes (Spanish 4, Pre-Calculus Competition, Humanities). So, the majority of my workload came from USH, English, and Physics. Psych was easy (though, don’t underestimate 30 pgs of dry reading along with all the other work), I’m a native Spanish speaker, Pre-Calc was easy especially because of the review of Algebra 2, Humanities was a specifically joke elective.</p>

<p>For US History, I had a terrible teacher. possibly the worst one ever. I kid you not, she believed Andrew Jackson and Stonewall Jackson were the same person. She admitted to getting a “3 and a half” on the AP exam when she took it before teaching the class. At first, I tried to listen to her lectures; however, they were useless. She read near-verbatim from the books, barely understood the material, and whenever we had questions, her response would be “I’ll have to look it up.” About halfway through the semester, I stopped listening to her and began doing the hw for her class in the period.
I would read the textbook at home, and identifiy/write definitions for the key-terms (that was our hw, and there were A LOT of them) in her class. We did a chapter a week, which amounted to 30 pgs of reading/week on average. It was a lot of work, and I resented the class all year.</p>

<p>English Language and Physics B were much less work, but neither was a joke. Physics B has huge webassign psets, and they took a long time, but I enjoyed them. The problems were chalenging and complex, but solving them was very gratifying,a nd I fell in love with the subject. English Language had spurts of work and spurts of ease. Sometimes we had to read books, which often came with 200+ question packs, and sometimes we had essays, both in-class and out of it. However, the teacher was great, and I did manage to become a much stronger writer. It got much easier by the 2nd semester, because we focused more on AP and less on books and other more work-intensive parts of the class. I do remember one week when I had to read Huckleberry Finn and do ~500 questions on it, in addition to my normal 60+ pgs of reading for USH and Psych and Physics pset. That was an unpleasant week, to say the least. </p>

<p>But, that was at the extreme. I still managed to get 5-6 hours of sleep a night (and this wasn’t due to work, just due to the fact that I had to wake up at 6AM for a school bus and I couldn’t go to sleep before midnight) and have free time. I also didn’t have a car, which meant that sometimes I would have to stay at the library until 7PM, after an extracurricular activity that ended at 3, for my dad to pick me up. I still survived, and my reward was a ridiculously easy senior year.&lt;/p>

33

<p>3 aps, all other classes honors, orchestra, honors quintet, and chamber orchestra, academic challenge, going to younglife because my friends are involved in it, church youth group and various youth events, 33 act, and 2210 sat. I’m not even sure how I would go about making all those things fill my entire life. Never (that I recall) got a less than adequate amount of sleep, and had plenty of time for a social life. It wouldn’t have been worth sacrificing those things though. I’m not sure how you guys do it.</p>

34

<p>I’ll be a junior next year. 7 AP’s, two of which are self studies. Two Dual Enrollment classes. Captain/President of two clubs. A sport.</p>

<p>Bring it on.</p>

35

<p>Get it done champion!!!</p>

36

<p>I did 99%. I only kept like 2 friends who actually supported me in that, the others were like “no SATs are easy” and thought just because they can get a 2000 and above naturally, everyone else should be able to. smh.</p>

37

<p>Unfortunately I did and since I’m a rising senior, I’m not sure if it was worth it. I had 5 APs (Psych, US, English lang, Stats and Chem) and I gave my all to study for all of them. Our Psych class wasn’t very helpful in terms of the AP so I’m glad I read the textbook on my own and I found it interesting, our US history teacher is amazing but slow (we only got up to the new deal the DAY BEFORE the AP) and I honestly did not learn the 1950+ info on my own so Nixon was an unpleasant surprise, our Lang teacher gave us hours of work out of nowhere alternating with weeks of nothing lol, and our Stats class was consistent hw all year and I really stressed out about those tests for my GPA. For Chem, our teacher’s notes were a summary of the textbook and thats it so I had to actually read the book on my own to actually understand the simple summary. Thank god I started studying for the SAT in the summer before so I took it in Jan and was done after that since I broke 2300 and 1500 (barely lol). I got all 5’s and a great GPA but there were long periods of time where I slept like 4 hours a night and took naps when I came home. Honestly, I was dead all day and looking back on it, i don’t know how I did it and I’m not sure if it was worth it yet since this site is making me doubt my chances of getting into a good school since I have no standout ECs.</p>

38

<p>I started worrying about junior year from the moment I signed up for my classes during the spring of my sophomore year. Everyone at my school stresses how it’s the hardest and most important year, so I was terrified. However, I thought it all was exaggerated. Yes, it was the hardest, but it wasn’t too hard to handle. I took four AP classes and three pre-AP classes. On top of that, I got my first job, and was active in clubs and church. I enjoyed it all. In fact, the worst part for me was dealing with a few friends who went through bad break-ups.
I was taking the hardest classes I’ve ever been in, and my GPA and class rank actually went UP. And I still had time for a new relationship that has been a hugely positive part of my life. I definitely didn’t sacrifice it all, and I don’t think I’ve lost anything whatsoever. My SAT could have been better, but my ACT was nearly perfect without worrying at all.
All in all, I think the key is just tackle things as they come. It doesn’t do any good to be worrying about that test next week when you have a paper to write that is due tomorrow. Sometimes I’d procrastinate on something and then start to freak out because it felt hopeless. I learned to take a breath and just buckle down and do it. I consider junior year to be my best year simply because I learned that the limits I’d previously assigned to myself don’t exist. And now, SENIORS 2012! I’m so excited/nervous/scared, but I know this is going to be an awesome year.</p>

39

<p>And as I heaved all those prep books on my shoulders, I said goodbye to my dog… in eight different languages.</p>

40

<p>i’ve gotten a taste of what junior year will be like this year, which makes me DREAD it. </p>

<p>second semester of this year was ridiculous. what really killed me was history research, a class to help “prepare us for ap world history”<em>cough</em>it helped to KILL US<em>cough</em> where we had to write a 5+ page outline (longest was about 14 pages), an in-class essay, an sit through someone’s presentation of some ap world topic every week. we also had 5+ page research papers to write each each marking period (3 in total). i cant even tell you how many nights i had to stay up until 3-4 in the morning, only giving me about 2-3 hours of sleep. i’ll admit that seeing everyone freak out on facebook over some outline/essay at 2 in the morning when they could be doing their work was funny… </p>

<p>and on top of this, i had this class where we had to write a 15-page proposal for this competition. it was a lot of work, with doing a bunch of research on a topic, doing interviews, passing out 100 surveys (an going through hell to get them back), tallying up EVERY LAST SURVEY and putting the data into charts. this wouldn’t have been so bad if the teacher was EVIL, always yelling and not even helping us out half the time. this class nearly costed me my sanity. thank goodness that i didn’t lose that, since i’ll need it to get through next year…</p>