1. Start applications early. I know your summer is filled with exciting adventures with your friends, especially since you may have your license. The idea of sitting inside filling out boring information and completing essays may not sound fun. But you will want to travel back in time and give yourself a high five for not inflicting the pain and stress of applications while you are in other rigorous classes and clubs. It is still your teacher’s job to teach you, and they will not cut you any slack just because you are slacking your applications!

2. Students in Sci/Tech and Capstone: Don’t procrastinate on your Research Practicum. It is not scary as long as you write down your deadlines and know exactly what each chapter entitles. Complete chapters before the due date, often times, you will need to ask your teacher question about the format or how your experiment should be represented through your work. If you continue to miss deadlines your instructor will not think twice about removing you from the program, and this means not graduating with this program on your transcript after three and a half years of hard work.

3. IT IS NOT A CAREFREE YEAR. Senior year is enjoyable in many ways, but not solely because you are entitled to an easy breezy year. Senior year is filled with the excitement of moving on from the structured mass environment of grade school, but you are still faced with essays, homework, sports practices (often with more responsibility to be role models for younger students), and your first taste of making adult choices. Senior year can be quite stressful even, which is why it is important to keep track of deadlines and prepare for the obstacles to come months in advance.

4. Apply to as many scholarships as you can. Look for obscure ones. Applying to local scholarships through the town you live in, or small money summed scholarships will give you better chances of being awarded money because not as many people apply for them. Look at secure websites such as College Board’s Big Future Scholarship search, and Fastweb to give you options. Never trust a “scholarship” website that asks you to pay money to sign up, this is a scam, and quite counter-productive.

5. Apply to your dream school if you have the grades to compete with other applicants even if you do not have the money for tuition. Often these schools will award money and scholarships to those with a lower incomes because they look for a wide variety of students to enter their campus and should focus on equal opportunity for qualified students.

6. Apply to a wide variety of schools. You may have your eyes set on that one school that you have always had in the back of your mind; the one that adorns most of your sweatshirts, or the one you can see yourself walking around in. I really hope your dreams come true, but in reality, there are so many unforeseen outcomes of admissions processes. If that acceptance letter does not come in, you may be crushed, but don’t let this crush your academic plans. Apply to more than just a few dream schools- you never know the surprises that come your way when your third or fourth choices want you in a special program or give you scholarships to go there. It never hurts to have an open mind.

7. “Senioritis” is a choice. While you’re thinking everyone is procrastinating, there are students working hard and applying to the same school you are applying to. Honestly, a star student showing sudden decline is more of a warning sign than a qualified student on the brink of acceptance with steady grades. No college looks highly upon a student who chooses to give up.

8. Research your future. Think about it: Americans between the ages of 18-34 years old spend about 3.8 hours on social media a day.^* What if we all cut this in half or even just a quarter, and searched things like possible jobs and job income? This would expose us to many different ideas and open new doors for our futures. And anyway, creeping on your ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend will not enlighten you in a proactive way like a possible career path might, no matter how addictive it is.

* This statistic was published by the New York Times on July 16^th, 2014 in the article “Reclaiming Our (Real) Lives From Social Media” by Nick Bilton.