Preparing for Senior Year: Tips for Students to Finish High School Strong

Preparing for Senior Year: Tips for Students to Finish High School Strong

Parents, this is it: the culmination of your child’s hard work! Senior year is an important one, and while much of the work to prepare for college admission takes place during junior year, there are still many tasks and to-dos that your student needs to stay on top of, and a great deal of mental preparation for the next big chapter: college.

Here are several tips for your student to help them prepare for this critical year:

1. Commit to time management. This year will bring a lot of excitement for your student, but their responsibilities don’t go away. Those who manage their time will be able to meet all of their academic commitments while also enjoying the fun things happening during the final year of high school. As a bonus, managing everything effectively will help your student prepare for college, when a solid organizational system is critical.
2. Continue the effort. Heard of senioritis? It is a real affliction for most high school students nearing the finish line, but remind your student about the dangers of slacking off. Colleges may request that students report changes in their academic status even after they have been admitted. That means low grades could affect your student’s admission offer. Plus, getting into bad habits before college begins is not ideal. Encourage your student to stay focused and stay the course until the end of the year.
3. Make the college application the best it can be. Early decision/early action applications are not due until early November, which means your student has time to polish their college applications. Preparing college applications should be a key focus for your soon-to-be senior, even if they are applying via regular deadlines. That means making sure:
   • All application essays are fine-tuned.
   • All requested letters of recommendation are ready and submitted with plenty of time before the application deadline.
   • All other materials are gathered and ready to submit well in advance of application deadlines.
   • Your student’s SAT or ACT scores are strong.
4. Study for and take the SAT or ACT one last time. Even with many colleges adopting test-optional policies for the upcoming application cycle and beyond, taking the SAT or ACT is a smart idea. Strong SAT or ACT scores help students prove their academic performance, especially if their GPA is lower than it might have been in a school year that did not include remote learning.
   
   Colleges also use these scores to screen students for merit-based scholarships, and sometimes they are used to admit students into specific schools or programs within a college. Fall SAT dates are August 28^th and October 2^nd, 2021. Fall ACT dates are September 11^th and October 22^nd, 2021. Contact Huntington to learn more about our one-to-one, customized exam prep programs designed to help students improve their scores.

Your student deserves to enjoy this final year of high school, but it’s also important to finish strong, especially with college admissions still on the line. Remind them that doing so will be worthwhile, because it will help them earn admission into one of their college choices – setting them up for higher education success.