Tips for Freshman

The road to college starts your freshman year. It's important to be aware of your grades so that you don't hurt your school transcript or your grade point average. Remember that your GPA means a lot when it comes to college admissions. The person in control of your education and your future is you, not your teachers, friends or parents. High school is an exciting, new and fun time, and you should definitely make the most of the experience. But remember that your senior year and college admissions will be upon you before you know it, and a little preparation early can go a long way. It's up to you to start planning for college now and working on keeping your GPA high and your transcript impressive.

Even though social activities are an important part of high school life, they shouldn't be your main focus during the school day. Your focus in high school should be learning, preparing for college by taking challenging classes and preparing yourself for college majors and degrees. You should definitely try to have a rich social life in high school, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get good grades too. Good grades are your ticket to getting into great colleges and universities, which in turn gives you more career choice and opportunities. Remember that while high school may seem like forever, it’s only four years, but the college you choose and your subsequent career affects the rest of your life.

Many students say they don’t have time for extracurriculars, but keep in mind that these activities can help both your social life and your college applications. When you start your search to find a college, you'll see that they look for well-rounded students who did extracurricular activities along with a challenging academic program. The best careers today are highly competitive and they require people to be able to multi-task. That doesn’t mean you should sign up for every activity out there; just try a few programs until you find ones you like. It’s better to be dedicated and active in a few activities than to make little effort in several. You never know what you may end up feeling incredibly passionate about. Moreover, you want to find that passion early on so you can figure out how to invest a lot of time in exploring it.

It's never too early to start preparing for college. Since colleges look at your accomplishments from all four years of high school, you don't want to wait until your junior year to start thinking about your GPA and college admissions. Meet with your academic counselor about taking college prep classes that will enhance your transcript and improve your chances of getting into the college of your choice. For example, if you’re focused on selective colleges, you’ll want to take as many AP courses as you can handle. Colleges will look at your transcript to see if you’ve challenged yourself academically. Keep in mind that the ideal four-year preparatory program includes four years of English, math, science, biology, chemistry, physics, three years of history (including American and European history), and four years of one foreign language.

Tip: How To Raise Your GPA: Although passing an AP exam will grant you college credits and a free pass on some college prerequisite classes AP courses can also help strengthen your GPA. Remember, an A in an AP course is worth five points, compared to the four points an A in a non-AP course will score you.