How to survive Junior Year of High School?

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>With junior year approaching next year and everyone stressing the importance of 11th grade, I cannot help but feel apprehensive and nervous. Does anyone have any advice on how to survive this monstrous year. Here is a glance of what my junior year will be like:</p>

<p>*I am trying to get all A's and A+'s
Courseload:
Honors Chemistry I
Honors Pre-Calculus
Honors Sociology
Honors Economy
Honors Human Geography
AP English Language and Composition
AP US Government
CP Arguementation and Debate
CP Psychology
Ocean Science
Drawing
*No free period / study hall</p>

<p>EC's & Work
Part time job
Driver's Ed (Q.1)</p>

<p>School newspaper
Debate Club
Student Senate
Link Crew
Model U.N.
Inkwell
Peer Outreach</p>

<p>Junior Year Things:
PSAT's
SAT I
SAT II: (Math, Chemistry, and Biology M)
AP Exams: (English Composition, US Government, and Human Geography)</p>

<p>So how can I manage this? Roughly how many hours of sleep /night would I be getting? Any advice? </p>

2

<p>Time-Turner?</p>

3

<p>I have a few thoughts:

  1. Drop one AP (preferably lang) and your life becomes 200x better
  2. (required) No social life (but seriously, work before anything else)
  3. Take some caffeine right before you take a power nap so that after 20 mins, you’ll be awake and ready to finish that essay.
  4. Lunch = hw time / study hall
  5. Non-academic classes = hw time / study hall
  6. Have an alarm set for 4 am if you are too tired to finish hw, but beware at 4 you might be too sleepy to care. However, if you do manage to get up, you might find yourself surprisingly awake at that time.</p>

<p>In junior year, I surprisingly averaged a good 5-7 hrs of sleep, so my bestest of best advice is to NOT PROCRASTINATE. Hw will take hours, but you can still manage 8 hrs of sleep only if you don’t procrastinate. Good luck on the most miserable year of your life so far. :)</p>

4

<p>How do you have so many courses? Do you have a block schedule or semester courses? I agree with @caffeinemolecule‌ on most things, except perhaps no social life, but definitely prioritize!</p>

5

<p>@shawnspencer Some of my classes are semester classes. And this also goes to @caffeinemolecule wouldn’t dropping AP Lang look bad for college? I hear it’s an easy AP class, is that true?</p>

6

<p>That’s subjective, since the difficulty of the class depends on the teacher and your abilities. If reading and writing are your strengths, they go for it. However, my busiest times were when I had an essay due soon on top of all the hw that I usually had.</p>

7

<h2>That’s a lot of classes, but I can sympathize. I took 14 during my junior year; granted, some of them were semester classes, so I only had about 10 classes/semester, which really isn’t as bad as it sounds. </h2>

<p>Carry problem sets with you between classes and work on them in the hallways/at lunch/whenever you are not in class (not hugely beneficial, but it helps form the right mindset). When you get home, start working immediately. Make lots of schedules, and follow them. Be accountable to others. If you have to, bet your classmates $500 that you can get an A-/A/A+ in every class. That’ll keep you on your toes.</p>

<p>Find something to love in 10/11 of your classes. You’ll be motivated to study, and you can always complain about the 11th class (for me, that was Constitutional Law).</p>

<p>Be nice to your teachers. You’ll get better recommendation letters, and they are more likely to be lenient about deadlines. Spend a little time learning about these subjects on Wikipedia. You’ll impress your teachers and score better on quizzes/tests/exams.</p>

<p>Spend extra time on precalculus and AP Language. These classes might actually benefit you in real life.</p>

<p>Focus on learning key concepts in every class. You will only need to spend 1-2 hours/week studying for quizzes/tests/exams if you learn the material when it is assigned.</p>

<p>Arguementation is not a word.</p>

<p>Drop 1-2 clubs/classes if they are not important to you. Membership in a club will not help you if you don’t do anything significant.</p>

<p>SAT IIs are more important in admissions than AP exams. I realized this far too late, and spent 80+ hours on AP exam preparation but only 2-3 hours on SAT II preparation.</p>