<p>My junior year is almost ending but does anyone have advice what I should start doing in terms of college preparation such as start talking to local college rep so that they get to know you?</p>
<p>I don't want to be a senior and think that "oohhh I wish I had done that my junior year"</p>
<p>Junior also</p>
<p>Look into universities. Know top choices before senior year, plan trips or early applications.</p>
<p>Definitely start planning where you might want to apply. Come up with a rough list of safeties, matches, and reaches. Also try and visit a few of your top choices, if not now in the summer.</p>
<p>how are u guys spending the summer? i still don’t know :/</p>
<p>Start working on essays in the summer (and have an activities list ready). I said I was going to write essays during the summer, but never ended up doing it. My fall would have been less stressful had I had all of the essays done before hand and just needed to edit.</p>
<p>And definitely have a general college list at the end of the summer. You can make changes, of course, but have it ready, especially if you are applying ED.</p>
<p>Definitely definitely have a list of colleges! And make sure you do your research on each one.</p>
<p>So by the beginning of summer you should have a general idea of which colleges you might want to apply to, and have visited at least a few of those schools.</p>
<p>During summer start to come up with a more concrete list; by the end of summer you should have a pretty solid list of schools that you’re going to apply to. Of course they can change (and probably are going to). Also try and get your essays done in the summer - you’ll have a lot less stress that way and can spend the rest of first semester just editing them and fixing them up.</p>
<p>If you’re doing any summer camps or research activities in the summer, that’s great as well.</p>
<p>yea, and look into whether or not you want to apply anywhere ED because I made that decision last minute and I reaaaally regret that. </p>
<p>It depends on your work habit but I know that I procrastinate like no other and didn’t do most of my applications until last minute, which for the most part is fine, but I would definitely suggest finishing the first draft of your common app essay by september. </p>
<p>I would also read a lot during the summer, like a looooot. more than anything else reading improves the quality of writing, so when it’s time to buckle down and write your essays you will be a lot better off.</p>
<p>FYI, I have <em>never</em> developed a relationship with a college rep, ever. And all of the ones that I’ve asked about it said that they were more annoyed by kids pestering them than anything else.
Of course, it’ll vary by college, but in general, I’d focus more on boosting your application through merit than through connections. Hell, I picked up a sport I’d never tried before my junior year and made it onto varsity, and I’m convinced that by showing that I can adapt easily and excel in many areas, I got into Yale and Harvard.
It’s not too late to do something amazing. Go for it.</p>
<p>DEFINITELY get a solid list down of the schools you want to apply to. I had an idea throughout junior year but had to fight and argue with my mom for months over a final list. I didn’t have a solid list until late-October, mid-November, which made it very stressful for January deadlines. Try to do some volunteer work over the summer, and while you’re planning the colleges you want to apply to, make sure you have taken or will be taking all the classes they require. For one of my schools, I learned a month before handing in my applications that they needed PreCalculus as a requirement. I was taking Algebra & Trigonometry, which is a close equivelant, but had to enroll in a college course of PreCalc. Now, I am taking an extra class and I’m stuck taking a college-level final that is twice the length, time, and worth more points toward my final grade than finals count in my high school.</p>
<p>**What I did do and what I think you should do: **
[ul][<em>]Start visiting some schools if you can to see what each school offers. I started by scouring each university’s website and the department I was interested in and marked down the ones that caught my attention. I then narrowed the list one by one as I did campus visits. I campus visited Michigan in late March, Brown in June, and Chicago/Northwestern in August. (That said you should keep one or two universities on your list that you’re definitely sure that you’ll get into, just in case everything else goes wrong, but let’s just say that won’t happen and maintain a positive attitude, shall we? :))
[</em>]Spend a summer at your first-choice school by enrolling in a summer program, even if it isn’t entirely prestigious and necessarily helps with your chances of admission. It gives you the opportunity to experience the school first-hand and you can live a few weeks of college life … it also preps you to go to college after you’re done with HS as a senior. (I can tell you that I’m more confident about going to college after going to Summer@Brown) … btw I still love Brown even though they rejected me 
[<em>]Start brainstorming on those essays the day the school releases the app. You want to spend as much time working on and polishing those essays as you can. They’re mighty important.
[</em>]Keep doing the things you love … because that helps define who you are as a person, and universities what to know about who you are and what you can offer to campus.
[/ul]</p>
<p>This is what I didn’t do that you should do:
[ul][li]Be calm! You’ll be fine and you’ll ultimately survive even if you don’t get into your first-choice school. Otherwise, you’ll have high blood pressure like I did. High blood pressure = no good!! (Honestly, my blood pressure junior year was 160/120 and that means frequent visits to the doctor, and that’s a total waste of your time)[/li][/ul]</p>
<p>try to get as much stuff done as possible to free up your senior year. for instance: visit colleges this summer and narrow down your list. i didnt visit many last summer and had a ton of schools on my list, so i applied to 30 schools. now im trying to decide where to go and fit visits in, but i dont have time for it. also, take sats and subject tests now so you dont have to your senior year, especially if you do sports. sats always landed on cross country meet days for me, which was frustrating.</p>