Research schools early in your senior year. The earlier you begin to research colleges, the better. And, I don’t use the term research lightly. Choosing a college is a big decision, and a lot of thought needs to go into it. Collect brochures from colleges and go to their website to look through their course offerings. See if professors from the school have videos on YouTube. Watch them. Look through the internship opportunities and affiliations the school may have. Gather data on class size, graduation rates, tuition, clubs, and housing. The more you learn about the school, the more educated decisions you’ll be able to make.

Attend college nights and college fairs. Your school set these up for a reason. The more you learn about the college application process, the better off you are. College fairs typically have admission officers who come to tell you a little more about their schools and who can answer any questions you may have about the process and how they judge candidates. Introduce yourself to the admission officers from the schools you are applying to, briefly tell them about your interest in their school, and ask a question that they haven’t already answered.It may also benefit you to frequent college fairs or panels if several are offered at your school. 

Be mindful of your stress levels and find appropriate ways to address them. College applications are stressful–if you let them be. The more you organize your time and stick to a predictable schedule, the less likely you are to feel that dreaded overwhelming feeling. Be mindful of your stress levels during your junior and senior year. Take breaks when you need to–go for a walk, listen to an inspiring Ted Talk on motivation, visualize yourself finishing your applications, meditate, journal, work on a fun project. Learn how you relax and how you alleviate stress.

Talk about finances with your parents. Unless your family is particularly well-off and has made the decision to pay for your college tuition in full, it’s likely that you’ll need to plan for how you’ll pay for college. Attend financial aid night with your parents to learn about government grants and student loans. An open line of communication with your parents is often the best way to tackle finances. Consider how much it will cost to live off campus and to skip the school’s meal plan in the subsequent years to save yourself some money.

Look for scholarships early your senior year. There are MILLIONS of dollars up for grabs in scholarship money. MILLIONS. And, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to obtain them.There are plenty of scholarships that you’ll qualify for…simply spend some time looking for them. Here’s bonus tip #1: look for scholarships that require essays. Why? Well, did you just groan when I implied that you should write an essay? Exactly. Fewer students apply to scholarships that require essays because they don’t want to write essays. What does this mean? This means that there is less competition.

Make time for your friends and for fun–be present. On that same note, make sure you have some fun in your senior year. Hang out with your friends in non-school related activities. Find a balance between your school and social life. If you organize your time well, you’ll be ahead of the game, and you’ll find you have more weekends to socialize because you got things done early. You may not realize it now, but your senior year will go by quickly and before you know it, you’ll be graduating college wondering where the time went.

It's OK to not know what you want to do after high school. Not everyone knows what major, career and college they want to pursue after high school, and that's OK. If you aren't sure about what college you want to go to after applying to a bunch of schools, or if you're still unsure about what your major is going to be, that's OK. You could go to community college and get a sense of what you really want to major in. If you think you want to work the year after you graduate to save money or take a gap year, then go for it. People at every age go back to college every day. If you're not ready for college, then take a break and figure out what you really want to do in life.