…tell a story. Or, if telling stories isn’t your thing, use your college essay to lay out a case for why you should be admitted.

This blog post is part of a series that will help you as you apply to colleges. Today, I’m giving you some pointers on how to write a college essay that wows.

Are you late to the party and want to know what’s going on? Start here.

This post is relevant to you if it is the summer before your senior year or if you are currently in your senior year of high school. I don’t recommend that juniors worry about their college essay yet, but if you want to get a head start, this will help with self-reflection and get you in the right mindset to complete this essay.

Let’s write this college essay.

The trick to doing that is to reframe how you think about the college essay. Get in the mindset that this isn’t the usual five-paragraph-essay you write in class. It’ll be easier to write if you think of it as you telling a story or making a case for yourself instead.

This blog post is part of a series that will help you as you apply to colleges. Today, I’m covering some things you should double check before you click the submit button on your college applications.

You’re in the final stretch, and you’ve done the bulk of the college application process work in your junior year. So, while it might be stressful, your to-do list shouldn’t be as long as it was before.

Are you late to the party and want to know what’s going on? Start here.

This post is relevant to you if it is the summer before your senior year or if you are currently in your senior year of high school.

Let’s break down what you need to be aware of early on.

This blog post is part of a series that will help you as you apply to colleges. Today, I’m sharing some things you should finish before senior year to stay on track as you narrow down your school list and prepare to apply to colleges.

This blog post is part of a series that will help you as you apply to colleges. Today, I’m sharing a list of some of the things you should do during the fall of junior year to be ready to submit applications to colleges.

Are you late to the party and want to know what’s going on? Start here.

This post is relevant to you if it is the summer before your junior year or if you are currently in your junior year of high school. Follow along, add some details to your calendar and we’ll make sure something like this ~doesn’t~ happen:

1. Take the PSAT/Pre-ACT

This blog post is part of a series that will help you as you apply to colleges. Today, I’ll share my own personal experiences with choosing a major and what I wish I knew when I made my decision. This post is for you if you’re feeling stuck deciding if you should play it safe and choose a major with guaranteed job security or choose a major that you’re passionate about.

Are you late to the party and want to know what’s going on? Start here.

Is it ok to apply undecided?

It’s totally fine if you’re on the fence or undecided about a major—applying undecided is a legitimate option. This doesn’t hurt your chances of getting in, and a large percentage of students attend college this way each year.

This blog post is part of a series that will help you as you apply to colleges. Today, we’ll talk about things you, as a junior, might find helpful before you start applying to schools and some helpful things to keep in mind throughout the school year.

Are you late to the party and want to know what’s going on? Start here.

This post is relevant to you if you are a rising junior or currently in your junior year of high school. Or, if you’re a rising senior and are getting up to speed with the college process.

Important things to remember as a junior

With so many moving parts in the college admissions process, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by everything you need to do as you start applying to college. It’s likely that at some point, you’ll stress about deadlines and feel like the world is on fire.

It usually starts with innocent and well-intentioned questions and ends with you in a panic.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

I mean, don’t get me wrong. In terms of dealing with stress, you’ll learn things about yourself that you never knew during the college application process. This is supposed to happen, so don’t worry *too* much.

But try to think of applying to colleges like preparing for a marathon. Marathoners build endurance and participate in a ton of short races before marathons. They don’t just show up to the Boston Marathon start line the third Monday in April and expect to be able to run 26.2 miles without training for months beforehand.

Breaking down the admissions process into easy to manage chunks (working towards a marathon) will keep you focused and organized and help prevent you from getting emotionally drained.

I’ve broken down some things you should know about applying to college (any college, not just UMass Lowell) *and when* you should complete these milestones.

I’ll give you some pointers on what should be accomplished from the time you begin your junior year in high school to the time you submit your last application as a senior.

In the next series of posts, you’ll figure out how to work through the marathon that is applying to colleges. You’ll learn how to compile a list of colleges that you’ll thrive at, when you should ask teachers for letters of recommendations and more.

Here are the links to all the blog posts in this series so you can get to them easily:

• Juniors! Tips to know before applying
• Choosing a major: Following your passions and figuring out what they are
• Some things you should do in the fall of your junior year
• Some things you should finish before senior year
• Seniors! Some reminders as you apply to colleges
• Don’t write a college essay…
• More coming soon…

This is an eight-part series, and I plan to publish new posts on Fridays. I’ll update the links here as they go live. Sign up to get notified when I publish the next post in this series.