What I wish I knew in 12th grade—

Don't blow off important exams and don't apply to more colleges than you have fingers

Senior year of high school is great. Most people are working really hard at being voted “best dressed” or “most likely to make a million dollars.” Ok, you're probably different if you’re online, reading about applying to college. So what’s the thing that no one told me during senior year? Don’t blow off important exams! Important notice: AP exams count for placement credit.

You’ll be wasting the opportunity to skip out of lots of prospective classes if you say, like I did, “Eh… who cares if I study for my AP physics exam tomorrow. It’s not going to count for anything in the long run.” -- I remember saying that each and every day that I go to physics lab.

Seriously, though, your senior year is such a great time to “get ahead” on college courses if you're in those types of classes. You’ll hit yourself over and over if you don’t try your hardest on the placement exams and then have to take the course all over again when you get to wherever you're going to school.

So aside from the being responsible on tests part, the other good advice I have is don’t attempt to apply to more colleges than you have fingers. The “apply to every school I’ve ever heard of” approach to getting into college will drain you. It’s not worth it. The school I applied to first is the one I ended up attending.

The trick is to think about what you want in a school without thinking about any schools. Then make sure the schools you are looking at have those qualities. I think many people go shopping for a school before they know what they want in a school. I know I did.

Try to think about some specific things about going to college that are important to you. Do this before you ever open up application brochures. Pretty pictures don’t necessarily mean that the school is going to be right for you.

Ok, so go enjoy being a senior. Check back soon, and, contact me if you feel like I’m leading you astray on this site: feedback.

PS: An afterthought—make sure that your school has a good support system for new students, mainly advising programs. Carolina does a really great job at making sure that all students are taking the right mix of classes to graduate.