Senior year is difficult to manage with rigorous classes, AP exams, extra curricular activities, and college planning and applications. Here are four things you can do now to make your senior year less overwhelming:
- Research colleges of interest and begin building a list. Not sure where to start? Check out this resource page for recommended books and websites.
- If you have not taken your standardized tests, determine when you will take them in the fall. Click on these links for the 2009/2010 test dates SAT or ACT (be sure to tab over to the 2009-2010 dates).
- Visit colleges. Even if your not sure where you want to apply, by seeing colleges, it will help you determine what type of campus fits with your personal and academic needs. Refer back to this previous blog posting and scroll down to "Visiting Colleges".
- Begin developing essays. The Common Application, used by over 300 colleges and universities provides the following six prompts:
- Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.
- Discuss some issue of personal, local, national, or international concern and its importance to you.
- Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence.
- Describe a character in fiction, a historical figure, or a creative work (as in art, music, science, etc.) that has had an influence on you, and explain that influence.
- A range of academic interests, personal perspectives, and life experiences adds much to the educational mix. Given your personal background, describe an
experience that illustrates what you would bring to the diversity in a college community, or an encounter that demonstrated the importance of diversity to you. - Topic of your choice.
