How to Start Junior Year Off Right
How to Start Junior Year Off Right
By now you’ve heard that “junior year is the most important year of high school.” Admissions officers, college counselors, and well-meaning teachers repeat this adage over and over to ingrain it in the minds of the students they hope to motivate. And they’re right! What you do during 11th grade will go a long way in determining how colleges ultimately evaluate your application. Now that you’re an upperclassman, your grades, the decisions you make, and your roles within activities or teams take on added significance. But before you start to worry, remember this: the most important thing is that you do your best in everything you attempt. If you can focus on giving maximum effort and being open to growth opportunities, you will have a successful junior year. Let’s take a look at a few other important tips that will help you get your year started in the right direction.
Be Vocal
Now is the time to start using your voice and being vocal about your needs. If you require extra help from a teacher, seek him or her out. Don’t wait until you receive a poor grade on a test before you start to make adjustments. Being proactive in your classes will help you do your best from the beginning of the semester.Likewise, in your clubs and extracurricular activities, express yourself with confidence and clarity. Even if you aren’t in a direct position of leadership, don’t miss the opportunity to contribute a valuable opinion. For some students, this is easy and familiar. For others, you’ve gotten through the first half of high school without having to take too many chances. As you move into junior year, embrace your own point of view and be aware of your specific needs in and out of the classroom so that you can share them with others.
Form Better Relationships with Your Teachers and College Counselors
Your teachers and college counselor are important members of your support team. If you haven’t made a point earlier in your high school career to form meaningful relationships with them, now is the time to begin. To be clear, you don’t need to spend every free moment between classes and after school in your teachers’ classrooms or your counselor’s office. But make a point to schedule a meeting with your counselor and discuss your plans and interests with him or her. Also take advantage of your teachers’ office hours to show how interested you are in learning. This is especially important for subjects you intend to pursue in college. Whether it’s to firm up your understanding of a concept you’ve struggled with or to jump ahead and build on your knowledge, connecting with your teachers outside of class time will help set you apart from your peers and ensure you get the most out of your learning experience.Most of the colleges you will apply to require letters of recommendation from two teachers and your college counselor. And those teacher letters almost always come from your junior year instructors.Before the school year gets into full swing, begin to plan how you will take the initiative to be an active learner and connect with your teachers.
Be a Leader in Your Own Way
One reality of the college process is that a lot of ambitious students seek extracurricular activities that “look good” and take on roles with impressive-sounding titles. And while it’s important to increase your level of responsibility in the activities you pursue, what you actually do in those activities matters much more than the label you place on your resume.As you prepare to begin this school year, think about how you want to make an impact and what areas of your life—whether a sports team or theater troupe, your job or internship, your community service or family commitments—you can increase your positive influence.Leadership comes in many forms; now that you’re a junior, identify the ways that you want to assume greater leadership roles and begin working towards them. If you’re unsure of how to do this, talking with an admissions expert can be quite helpful.
Take an Inventory of Your Interests
It’s perfectly normal to not have a crystal-clear sense of what you want to do in life or what your major will be. In all likelihood, you won’t have to make a decision about your major until the beginning of junior year of college. There is plenty of time to figure out your exact path. But now is an ideal period to take serious inventory of what you like and don’t like. Are there subjects that are more interesting to you than others? Would you prefer to study in a major city or somewhere more rural? Do you enjoy working on projects in teams or more independently? Do you like being surrounded by thousands of pleasant strangers or would you like to know everyone in your grade on a first name basis?Begin to ask yourself these questions and gather a sense of the conditions that will make you most happy and most likely to be successful in college. This will help give your school year some direction and influence the way you approach your classes and extracurricular activities. Again, you don’t have to have all the answers; but by taking inventory of your interests you move a lot closer to finding them.
Take Your Passions Seriously
Don’t get caught in the trap of doing just enough to get by. What separates truly successful students from those with potential is their ability to push themselves beyond comfort zones and explore the things they love as fully as possible.Each of you will have your own passions and thoughts about how you want to impact the world. Now is the time to see how far you can take them!If you love math, begin thinking about how you can advance your knowledge beyond what your school’s curriculum allows. Perhaps there is an internship that would be ideal for you or an online course that explores a niche area within mathematics that really excites you.If you enjoy volunteer work, don’t just stop at meeting the community service requirements for your high school. Find a local organization where you can really get involved and dedicate significant time to helping other people.If you’ve thought about research, turn that thought into a self-directed project or find a mentor at school who can help you. The specific nature of your interest is less important than your willingness to take it as far as you can. Be passionate about your passions. Not only is it fulfilling, it will help you grow in ways you can’t even imagine.
Make a Test Prep Plan Early
For almost every student applying to college, standardized tests will be a factor in the application process. There are a number of excellent test-optional colleges and universities, but most 11th graders will take the SAT or ACT at least once this year.Setting up a test prep plan early will help you ease into being ready for these exams and learn how to manage your time more effectively. The journey to test preparedness is a marathon, not a sprint. By being thoughtful with your test prep plan early in the year, including identifying the subject areas for which you might need extra support, you set yourself up to have a more productive, successful junior year.
You Will Have Your Best Year Yet!
The power to define your story as a student is still in your hands. Junior year is a great opportunity to take major steps forward, in and out of the classroom, and put yourself on a path to achieving all your goals.
The expert admissions consultants at Wise World Prep have helped hundreds of students maximize their potential of being admitted to their top choice colleges and universities. Over 20 years, we have successfully guided students through each stage of the application process – from choosing competitive high school courses to building an appropriate college list to drafting winning essays to writing persuasive update and appeals letters. We would be happy to answer your questions and partner with you to create a successful admissions roadmap.
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