Also known as senioritis, taking it easy senior year may seem like a nice break, but is likely to do more harm than good.

Not only does senioritis jeopardize your chances for success later on in college, it can also affect your grades—and college admissions officers pay close attention to your performance senior year.

Senior-Year Grades and College Admission

Many students mistakenly believe that prepping for college ends after the eleventh grade. However, the senior year—the entire senior year—is actually of particular interest to colleges.

Applying

Many college applications (including the Common Application) require you to list your senior courses, including information about course levels and credit hours. It will be very obvious to the admissions officers if you’ve decided to take the year off.

Many colleges also include as part of the application a form called the mid-year grade report. Your counselor completes this form with first-half grades and sends it to the colleges to which you’ve applied. It then becomes a crucial part of the application folder.

If You Are Accepted

Many college acceptance letters include warnings to students such as “Your admission is contingent on your continued successful performance.” This means colleges reserve the right to deny you admission should your senior year grades drop.

Mary Lee Hoganson, college counselor for Homewood-Flossmor Community High School, Flossmor, Illinois writes: “It is not at all rare for a college to withdraw an offer of admission when grades drop significantly over the course of the senior year. (I have a folder full of copies of these letters.)”

How to Make the Most of Your Senior Year

Senior year is your opportunity to strengthen your skills and broaden your experiences, in school and out, to prepare for all of the challenges ahead. A successful senior year can help launch you on the path to a successful future.

Maintain a Challenging Course Load

You should take the most rigorous courses available, and be sure to continue taking college-track subjects. Consider AP^® courses, which can also earn you credit at many colleges.

Stay Active and Involved

Your continued involvement in activities, sports, and volunteer work will help you stay active and focused throughout your final year. A great internship or career-focused job opportunity can help motivate you to start considering your career options. Meaningful and significant experiences will help prepare you to make informed decisions about your education and career goals.

Try Out College Early

If you’re interested in pursuing a subject further, and have excelled at your high school classes so far, consider taking a class at a local college. This challenge can help you avoid sliding into an academic slump, and stimulate your interest in the possibilities of college.

Another option in many areas is middle college or early college high schools. These schools, normally located on community and four-year college campuses, allow students to spend their last two years taking classes in both college and high school. Early exposure to college classes introduces you to the rigor of college work while easing your transition from high school.

Whom should I ask?

Read the application carefully. Often colleges request letters of recommendation from an academic teacher (sometimes a specific discipline), your school counselor, or both. If a non-specified academic teacher is requested, your English or math teachers usually make good candidates. Also, you should use a teacher from junior year, or a current teacher if they have known you long enough to form an opinion. It is best not to go back too far, as colleges want current perspectives on their potential candidates. All the better if you get a recommendation from a teacher who’s also been involved with you outside the classroom, but unless a college specifically requests it, don’t use a coach or someone who can’t speak to your academic achievements and potential.

When should I ask?

Make sure to give your recommendation writers plenty of time—at least one month before letters are due—to complete and send your recommendations, but as with anything, the earlier the better. Many teachers like to have the summer to write recommendations, so if you asked last spring, you’re doing great. If you apply under early decision or early action plans, you’ll need to ask at the start of the school year, if you didn’t request one last spring.

How can I get the best possible recommendations?

Talk to your recommendation writers. For teachers, it’s important that they focus on your academic talents and accomplishments within their classroom, because that’s what colleges are looking for in teacher recommendations. Talk to them about what you remember about their class and your participation in it. Highlight a particular incident, paper, or anything else that might help them provide anecdotal information and specific examples of your achievement, rather than just vague praise.

It’s also important that you spend time talking with your counselors and ensure they know about your plans, accomplishments, and involvements. You may want to provide them with a brief resume of your activities and goals; a resume can provide the best overview of your high school involvement and contributions. Also, if there is some aspect of your transcript that needs explaining—perhaps low grades during sophomore year—it’s helpful to talk with your counselors to explain why and how you’ve changed and improved.

Helpful Tips

• Don’t be shy. Teachers and counselors are usually happy to help you, as long as you respect their time constraints.
• Include addressed and stamped envelopes for each school to which you’re applying.
• Provide teachers and counselors with deadlines for each recommendation that you are requesting, especially noting the earliest deadline.
• On the application form, waive your right to view recommendation letters. This gives more credibility to the recommendation in the eyes of the college.
• Typically, you know your teachers well enough to know who can provide favorable reviews of your accomplishments. If in doubt, don’t hesitate to ask if they feel comfortable writing a recommendation. In some cases, you may have no choice as to who to use, but when you do, make the best choice possible.
• Follow up with your recommendation writers a week or so prior to your first deadline, to ensure recommendations have been mailed or to see if they need additional information from you.
• Once you have decided which college to attend, write thank-you notes to everyone who provided a recommendation and tell them where you’ve decided to go to college. Be sure to do this before you leave high school.

Exams like the SAT^® and ACT can cause stress because they measure your performance on just one test, but this also works to your advantage. Standardized scores don’t leave any room for interpretation. Unlike other components of your application, they allow you to demonstrate your skills on a level playing field.

These scores, of course, are hardly the last word on where you’ll be accepted. When asked whether grades or test scores matter most, admissions officers invariably say grades, especially those in rigorous courses like AP^® and honors classes. But with many schools counting on SAT or ACT scores to provide a way to fairly compare students, it’s important to have a plan of attack for doing your best on these exams.

The Little Things Can Help You Test Your Best

Taking some small but crucial steps shortly before an exam will help you arrive relaxed and alert—and ready to perform your best.

• Know how you’ll get to the test location. Some students, particularly those who don’t register early, can end up assigned to a test site far from home. Make sure you print out and review directions if needed. Leave enough time in case you encounter unexpected delays.
• Get a good night’s sleep before the exam. Set out your admission ticket, the No. 2 pencils you’ll need, and fresh erasers before bed. Get up early enough to eat a good breakfast and arrive at the test site with time to spare.
• Bring a snack. You can’t do your best if you’re distracted by a growling stomach.
• Relax. Just do your best and try not to worry.

More Tips to Prepare You for Exams

You can also do several things in advance to ensure a successful testing experience.

• Do some research on the exam. You’ll be more confident if you know what to expect. In addition, if you’re familiar with different sections and directions in advance, you can save valuable time during the test.
• Complete practice exams. Taking a full-length practice test is a great way to prepare for an admissions exam, but there are alternatives. If you’re planning on taking the SAT, try your hand at a couple of samples, say, one 30 math section and one 30 verbal section. To get the most out of this exercise, be sure to time yourself.
• Look at your patterns and pacing. As you score your practice work, pay attention to the kinds of questions that give you trouble and focus your preparation accordingly. How was your pacing? If you finished early and got easy questions wrong, slow down and read questions more thoroughly. If you didn’t finish a section, that’s another pacing problem. See if you can quickly rule out one or more answers as definitely wrong. This strategy will improve your chances of picking the right answer in a timely manner. Check out Test-Taking Approaches for more tips.
• Make a testing plan. Part of your testing strategy is deciding how many times to take a particular exam. It usually makes sense to take a test like the SAT twice. Scores often go up on a second try.

Most importantly, stay calm and keep things in perspective. Remember that admissions tests are only part of the applications picture. Challenging courses, good grades, commitment to extracurriculars, teacher recommendations, and strong admissions essays all contribute to creating a portrait of who you are. Familiarize yourself with the tests, do your best, and chances are, you’ll do fine.

Why Colleges Often Report Missing Application Material

Colleges are inundated by the volumes of mail they receive. One large public university reports that it generally takes in more than 100,000 pieces of information from freshman applicants alone. Another states that 30 U.S. mail tubs full of applications arrive at deadline time, and numerous schools say that they receive more than half their applications right at the deadline. In addition, now that many schools require that admissions test scores be sent directly from the testing agency and letters of recommendation come from a variety of sources, colleges and universities no longer obtain complete applications in a single envelope.

Logistically speaking, opening, dating, sorting, and processing applications can be burdensome. Even with armies of workers on hand, the length of the entire operation can take anywhere from four days to three weeks, depending on the size of the school. Quite reasonably, then, there will be a delay between the arrival of an application at an admissions office and the placement of all information into an individual’s file. “Missing” material is generally somewhere in the admissions office and has yet to be filed. Letters, quite simply, are sent to applicants as a sort of insurance. So stay calm!

Other factors also come into play. Letters and packages handled by the U.S. Postal Service are often referred to as snail mail and with good reason. In the current age of faxing, emailing, and instant messaging, people are used to immediate communication. Sending information by post takes time. When you mail your college application, remember that there will be a lag between when you send it and when it is received. Missing information is sometimes en route.

Of course, more and more students are choosing to apply to schools online. With online applications, the problems of paper volume and snail mail are seemingly solved, but a new issue has emerged. Some applicants don’t trust the online application process, so after they send their information electronically, they mail it and sometimes fax it as well. Obviously, this creates double or triple the amount of work for the admissions office staff, and the sorting process takes even longer. So pick one form of application and stick to it.

How to Ensure Your Applications Reach Their Destinations

It is common for students and parents to feel tension during the college application process. Sending out applications, however, doesn’t have to be an activity that causes stress. Following these steps will ensure that your applications get to where they’re going:

Send applications in a timely manner. Getting college applications in on time actually means sending them out several weeks in advance of the school’s deadline. This will allow the post office to deliver the material and the staff in the admissions office to process it with time to spare. Even if you’re emailing your applications, send them in advance just in case any unforeseen issues come up. When you mail your applications in advance of deadlines, even if material needs to be resent, there’s nothing to worry about.

Keep a copy of everything. Make sure to duplicate your entire application. Also, remember to hang on to notes or emails from admissions offices, personal identification numbers and passwords, and even canceled checks. It never hurts to have full documentation of your actions and interactions, especially if a problem crops up later.

Send self-addressed postcards. Some high schools include return notes with application materials so that colleges and universities can reply and acknowledge that information has been received. If your high school sends this type of response card, great. If not, invest in some stamps and postcards so you can send a response card to colleges on your own. This extra step can give you the peace of mind you crave.

Keep your name consistent. Choose one name and stick with it. If you include your middle name on one document, you must remember to use it on all other forms. If you have a nickname, decide whether you will apply using that name or your given name. Either way, don’t switch once you’ve chosen because the likelihood of mix-ups and missing pieces will undoubtedly increase if you do.

Get the facts. Even if part of your application really is missing, the situation is easily fixed. Avoid angry confrontations with admissions officers or your school counselors. Take a deep breath; find out the real deal by calling the college’s admissions office; and then take the steps necessary, if any, to rectify the situation.

Application Form

In the old days (well, a few years ago), you had one application option—a handwritten or typed form. Today you can often apply online directly to an individual school or use the Common Application, entering your information just once.

Application Fee

The average college application fee is around $35. (Some colleges charge up to $60, while others don’t have an application fee at all.) The fee is usually nonrefundable, even if you’re not offered admission. Many colleges offer fee waivers for applicants from low-income families. If you need a fee waiver, call the college’s admissions office for more information.

High School Transcript

This form is filled out by an official of your high school. If it comes with your admissions materials, you should give it to the guidance office to complete as early as possible. Some colleges send this form directly to your school after receiving your application.

Admissions Test Scores

At many colleges, you have to submit SAT^®, SAT Subject Test™, or ACT test scores. Test scores are a standard way of measuring a student’s ability to do college-level work.

Letters of Recommendation

Your entire application should create a consistent portrait of who you are.Many private colleges ask you to submit one or more letters of recommendation from a teacher, counselor, or other adult who knows you well. When asking someone to write such a letter, be sure to do so well before the college’s deadline.

Essay

If you’re applying to private colleges, your essay often plays a very important role. Whether you’re writing an autobiographical statement or an essay on a specific theme, take the opportunity to express your individuality in a way that sets you apart from other applicants.

Interview

This is required or recommended by some colleges. Even if it’s not required, it’s a good idea to set up an interview because it gives you a chance to make a personal connection with someone who will have a voice in deciding whether or not you’ll be offered admission. If you’re too far away for an on-campus interview, try to arrange to meet with an alumnus in your community.

Audition/Portfolio

If you’re applying for a program such as music, art, or design, you may have to document prior work by auditioning on campus or submitting an audiotape, slides, or some other sample of your work to demonstrate your ability.

The Sum of the Parts

Your entire application should create a consistent portrait of who you are and what you’ll bring to the college. The more the pieces of the puzzle support one impression, the more confident the admissions committee will be in admitting you. If the essay or interview contradicts information you gave on other forms, you may cause them to have doubts about accepting you.

If all the parts of your application are filled out honestly and carefully, with an attention to your conviction that each school is a good match for you, you will come across in the best light possible.

Taken from CollegeBoard.com.

Then, quite often, the unthinkable happens. You ask your school counselor to send out your transcript, and he informs you that it will go out within the next week. “That’s not soon enough,” you think to yourself. “It needs to go out tomorrow.” The reality, though, is that counselors need a lot more than 24 hours to process college applications.

A Counselor’s Work

The American School Counselor Association recommends that the student-to-counselor ratio in schools be 250 to 1. The national average, however, is 475 to 1. This means that most counselors have many students they’re trying to help. Counselors also have other duties on top of college counseling, including: helping students with academic, career, and personal issues; providing classroom assistance; administrative support; and more. In short, counselors are busy people.

Helping students apply to college is a priority for counselors. However, sending application packets along with recommendations and transcripts takes time. Plus, at peak application times, counselors can be inundated with requests to process college applications.

Four Tips for Working with Your Counselor

So what can you do to make sure that your applications go out on time and that you keep your stress level to a minimum during this anxiety-filled process?

1.  Be Responsible.

Ultimately, you want to go to the college of your choice. Because you have one counselor and that counselor has many students, take charge of the application process. Know your deadlines, keep in contact with your counselor, and perform the legwork necessary to get the job done.

2.  Be Organized.

Make a chart to keep track of different colleges’ requirements, and mark a calendar with your application deadlines. Have a separate folder for each application so you can keep materials organized and easy to access. Ask for recommendations in September, and write your essays well ahead of the deadlines.

3.  Be Early.

In the case of college applications, on time might not be good enough. Essays, recommendations, and transcript request forms should all be completed and submitted at least two weeks prior to the application deadline. Counselors and support staff fill these requests on a first-come, first-served basis, so get in the line as early as possible. Most application packets are mailed, so don’t forget to leave time for the U.S. Postal Service to deliver your application and for the college’s internal mail service to process it. Finally, factor in some additional time for unanticipated errors and delays.

4.  Be Relaxed.

Filling out college applications can be stressful. Try not to let it get you down. Make sure to go out and have fun with your friends; to take breaks when you need them; and to remember that, in the end, the college application process is just a series of steps you need to complete. Just focus on the tasks at hand.

The college application process can be stressful and exhausting—but it doesn’t have to be. Organization, communication, patience, and reasonable expectations are the keys to making it a manageable and successful experience.

How It Works

My College List is a free online tool that allows you to:

• Keep a college watch list—add or delete colleges at any time.
• Create and manage online applications (for participating schools).
• Access information from any computer—no papers to lose!
• Jump quickly to each college’s website.
• Save notes, deadlines, and reminders for each college.

How to Add Schools to Your College List

Use College Search. There’s an “add to list” option next to each college’s name (for example, in your search results).

How to Access Your College List

• If you don’t already have one, you must first create a College Board account.
• When you sign in, you are taken to My Organizer, a personalized start page with important tools and reminders.
• Under the “My Colleges” tab, click on “College List.”
• When you’re signed in, you’ll also see a link to College List in the My Organizer dashboard on the left-hand side of most pages. Click the (+) symbol to expand your list and jump directly to a college’s information.

Go to My Organizer | Sign Up (It’s free!) — On CollegeBoard.com

Dos

Keep Your Focus Narrow and Personal

Your essay must prove a single point or thesis. The reader must be able to find your main idea and follow it from beginning to end. Try having someone read just your introduction to see what he thinks your essay is about.

Essays that try to be too comprehensive end up sounding watered-down. Remember, it’s not about telling the committee what you’ve done—they can pick that up from your list of activities—instead, it’s about showing them who you are.

Prove It

Develop your main idea with vivid and specific facts, events, quotations, examples, and reasons. There’s a big difference between simply stating a point of view and letting an idea unfold in the details:

• Okay: “I like to be surrounded by people with a variety of backgrounds and interests”
• Better: “During that night, I sang the theme song from Casablanca with a baseball coach who thinks he’s Bogie, discussed Marxism with a little old lady, and heard more than I ever wanted to know about some woman’s gall bladder operation.”

Be Specific

Avoid clichéd, generic, and predictable writing by using vivid and specific details.

• Okay: “I want to help people. I have gotten so much out of life through the love and guidance of my family, I feel that many individuals have not been as fortunate; therefore, I would like to expand the lives of others.”
• Better: “My Mom and Dad stood on plenty of sidelines ’til their shoes filled with water or their fingers turned white, or somebody’s golden retriever signed his name on their coats in mud. I think that kind of commitment is what I’d like to bring to working with fourth-graders.”

Don’ts

Don’t Tell Them What You Think They Want to Hear

Most admissions officers read plenty of essays about the charms of their university, the evils of terrorism, and the personal commitment involved in being a doctor. Bring something new to the table, not just what you think they want to hear.

Don’t Write a Resume

Don’t include information that is found elsewhere in the application. Your essay will end up sounding like an autobiography, travelogue, or laundry list. Yawn.

• “During my junior year, I played first singles on the tennis team, served on the student council, maintained a B+ average, traveled to France, and worked at a cheese factory.”

Don’t Use 50 Words When Five Will Do

Eliminate unnecessary words.

• Okay: “Over the years it has been pointed out to me by my parents, friends, and teachers—and I have even noticed this about myself, as well—that I am not the neatest person in the world.”
• Better: “I’m a slob.”

Don’t Forget to Proofread

Typos and spelling or grammatical errors can be interpreted as carelessness or just bad writing. Don’t rely on your computer’s spell check. It can miss spelling errors like the ones below.

• “After I graduate form high school, I plan to work for a nonprofit organization during the summer.”
• “From that day on, Daniel was my best fried.”

The Essay Writing Process

Okay, boot up your computer and let’s get to it. To write a college essay, use the exact same three-step process you’d use to write an essay for class: first prewrite, then draft, and finally, edit. This process will help you identify a focus for your essay, and gather the details you’ll need to support it.

Prewriting

To begin, you must first collect and organize potential ideas for your essay’s focus. Since all essay questions are attempts to learn about you, begin with yourself.

• Brainstorm: Set a timer for 15 minutes and make a list of your strengths and outstanding characteristics. Focus on strengths of personality, not things you’ve done. For example, you are responsible (not an “Eagle Scout”) or committed (not “played basketball”). If you keep drifting toward events rather than characteristics, make a second list of the things you’ve done, places you’ve been, accomplishments you’re proud of; use them for the activities section of your application.
• Discover Your Strengths: Do a little research about yourself: ask parents, friends, and teachers what your strengths are.
• Create a Self-Outline: Now, next to each trait, list five or six pieces of evidence from your life—things you’ve been or done—that prove your point.
• Find Patterns and Connections: Look for patterns in the material you’ve brainstormed. Group similar ideas and events together. For example, does your passion for numbers show up in your performance in the state math competition and your summer job at the computer store? Was basketball about sports or about friendships? When else have you stuck with the hard work to be with people who matter to you?

Drafting

Now it’s time to get down to the actual writing. Write your essay in three basic parts: introduction, body, and conclusion.

• The introduction gives your reader an idea of your essay’s content. It can shrink when you need to be concise. One vivid sentence might do: “The favorite science project was a complete failure.”
• The body presents the evidence that supports your main idea. Use narration and incident to show rather than tell.
• The conclusion can be brief as well, a few sentences to nail down the meaning of the events and incidents you’ve described.

An application essay doesn’t need to read like an essay about The Bluest Eye or the Congress of Vienna, but thinking in terms of these three traditional parts is a good way to organize your main points.

There are three basic essay styles you should consider:

• Standard Essay: Take two or three points from your self-outline, give a paragraph to each, and make sure you provide plenty of evidence. Choose things not apparent from the rest of your application or light up some of the activities and experiences listed there.
• Less-Is-More Essay: In this format, you focus on a single interesting point about yourself. It works well for brief essays of a paragraph or half a page.
• Narrative Essay: A narrative essay tells a short and vivid story. Omit the introduction, write one or two narrative paragraphs that grab and engage the reader’s attention, then explain what this little tale reveals about you.

Editing

When you have a good draft, it’s time to make final improvements to your draft, find and correct any errors, and get someone else to give you feedback. Remember, you are your best editor. No one can speak for you; your own words and ideas are your best bet.

• Let It Cool: Take a break from your work and come back to it in a few days. Does your main idea come across clearly? Do you prove your points with specific details? Is your essay easy to read aloud?
• Feedback Time: Have someone you like and trust (but someone likely to tell you the truth) read your essay. Ask them to tell you what they think you’re trying to convey. Did they get it right?
• Edit Down: Your language should be simple, direct, and clear. This is a personal essay, not a term paper. Make every word count (e.g., if you wrote “in society today,” consider changing that to “now”).
• Proofread Two More Times: Careless spelling or grammatical errors, awkward language, or fuzzy logic will make your essay memorable—in a bad way.

The “You” Question

Many colleges ask for an essay that boils down to, “Tell us about yourself.” The school just wants to know you better and see how you’ll introduce yourself. For example:

• “Please complete a one-page personal statement and submit it with your application.” (James Madison University)
• “How would you describe yourself as a human being? What quality do you like best in yourself and what do you like least? What quality would you most like to see flourish and which would you like to see wither?” (Bates College)

Your Approach

This direct question offers a chance to reveal your personality, insight, and commitment. The danger is that it’s open-ended, so you need to focus. Find just one or two things that will reveal your best qualities, and avoid the urge to spill everything.

The “Why Us” Question

Some schools ask for an essay about your choice of a school or career. They’re looking for information about your goals, and about how serious your commitment is to this particular school. For example:

• “Why is UVM a good college choice for you?” (University of Vermont)
• “Please tell us about your career goals and any plans you may have for graduate study.” (Westfield State College)

Your Approach

The focus is provided: Why did you choose this school or path? This should be pretty clear to you, since you probably went through some kind of selection process. Make sure you know your subject well. For example, if you say you want to attend Carleton College to major in agriculture, the school will be able to tell how carefully you’ve chosen (Carleton doesn’t have an agriculture major).

The “Creative” Question

Some colleges evaluate you through your choice of some tangential item: a national issue, a famous person, what you would put in a time capsule, a photograph. Here the school is looking at your creativity and the breadth of your knowledge and education. For example:

• “Do you believe there’s a generation gap? Describe the differences between your generation and others.” (Denison University)
• “Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence.” (Common Application)

Your approach

Again, you have something to react to, a way to show yourself and write about your real views. Just don’t forget the importance of writing an informed essay. For example, don’t write about a fantasy lunch with a famous writer and get the titles of her novels wrong. Also, when thinking about how creative to get, use common sense. Being creative to the point of wacky is a risk you may not want to take.