Sophomore year is finally over and Summer break is dwindling down: Junior Year is here. The most important year in high school, the year that colleges will be looking at the most; this is your make it or break it year. But even though this upcoming Junior year may look daunting, don’t be scared, if you follow these tips you will be breezing through SATs, ACTs and Junior Prom without breaking a sweat.

First and foremost you want to take the most appropriate classes that will help you meet all your requirements but also coincide with what you want to major in college. It is okay if you don’t know what classes you need to take or what you want to major in, your guidance counselor and parents will help and in the worst case scenario you have the first week of school to switch out of any classes. Now with those classes whether they are CP or AP level make sure you take all your classes seriously and try your best to secure the best grade; if your Freshman and Sophomore grades were not the best, your Junior is the year you can redeem yourself and bring your overall GPA up.

You may also want to think about taking AP classes during your Junior year, if you do well during these AP classes and get a minimum score of a 3 on the AP test it may count towards credits in the college you plan on attending; but each college is different so do your research. Additionally during your Junior year you can be admitted into the National Honor Society if your cumulative GPA from your Freshman and Sophomore years are at least 96 percent.

Secondly you will want to prepare for standardized testing, you should decide if you want to take the SAT, ACT, both, or none of the above (some colleges do not require standardized test score BUT make sure you do your research). Talk with your parents about registering for the tests and maybe taking prep classes, or taking your first test without practicing and gauging what you should do after receiving your scores. When preparing and taking these tests do not be afraid or nervous, if you prepared accordingly you should be fine and if not you can always retake the tests (colleges take your best scores).

Finally, you’ll want to start researching and looking at colleges. Start making a list of colleges that are located in an area where you think you will want to go to school whether in the city, country, suburbs, closely located to home or far away. Furthermore investigate what colleges have the right majors that you are thinking about studying and have the extra curricular activities that you are interested in.

By Alex Pendergrass ’17