What should sophomores do this spring?

Work at being good at high school

Everyone’s experience is different, I get that. But there’s a really good chance that this semester is going to be your Golden Age. For one, you’re almost half way through high school and have got the hang of it. You’re not a clueless and picked-on Freshman any more. You’ve cultivated relationships with fellow students and, hopefully, a teacher or two. And also, the big jump to more rigorous courses and more college pressure usually doesn't begin in full until the 11th grade. 

So now is your time to shine. There are a few things you should do:

Improve your grades. Set modest and achievable goals--like improving your grade in each class by just three points--and track your progress at that goal. Do this in a positive way by studying a little harder and giving an extra half hour of effort, but also do this in a negative way in the sense of working to eliminate one bad habit or time-waster. 

Continue to explore your interests. By now you don’t need anyone to remind you that school is about more than the classroom. 10th grade is when a lot of people make the move to leadership positions in clubs and teams, to getting after-school jobs, to driving, to dating. It’s also when you see a lot more people get into parties, alcohol, and drugs. You know all this, so just let me remind you to stay focused on you. Think about your interests, explore new ones, and work toward building some kind of expertise. Whether moving toward High Achievement or Dropout Prevention, it’s all too easy to get caught up in some Flow that doesn’t really fit you. Resist this. Get help when you need it.

Build confidence and clarity. There are dozens of ways to actively reduce your stress and build your confidence. If you haven’t yet, try at least one. Practice meditation; begin a workout routine; join a book club; take a low-stress online course; take on an art project; volunteer; write a short story; find a mentor; be a mentor.

Make summer plans

This is the same advice I have for 11th graders. 

If you need to work or want a job, that's great. As far as college is concerned it really doesn't matter what that job is so long as you work hard at it and are reflective about what you learn from the job. As you go to work, remind yourself to work as hard as you can. And when you're done, ask yourself what you learned from that day's work. Those two things matter so much more to everyone than the job title or name of the company. 

If you don't need to work, then make other plans. And here's the trick: treat it like a job, in the sense that you decide to do your best and be reflective. Even if you have the cushiest summer imaginable--maybe you're going to spend two months as a VIP on a cruise ship sailing around the Caribbean--you can still get a lot out of this. Just begin each day reminding yourself to make the most of the day, and end each day reflecting about what you learned. Whatever is you do, it can be useful for your college applications and useful for your productive and interesting life.

Sitting around "doing nothing" is the enemy of any smart and ambitious student.

Make fall plans

In his 5th century B.C.E. classic The Art of War, Sun Tzu says that the battle is won or lost before it even begins, because it is the preparation that wins the battle. Sports coaches love to repeat this wisdom about games being won during practice. The same principle applies to you and college admissions: the more you prepare now, the better it's going to be when the deadlines come.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Read these related posts:

   The secret to success? Here are two of them!

   What are the strongest signs of success?

3. Ask a question in the comments section.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Zoe Herring

Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.

10th graders, what should you be doing this fall?

Work at being good at high school. Take time to reflect and talk to your family or other adults you trust about the high and low points of last year. Work on making a plan to be even better at high school than you were last year. Keep taking the most rigorous courses you can, and keep doing as well at them as you can.

Think about college. You don’t need to know which college you want to go to, and you don’t need to have a “long list” prepared yet. But it is time to start thinking about it—I assume you have, since you’re here. Remember that you’re at the exploring stage right now, not the deciding stage. Ask older friends where they are thinking about going. Ask several adults you know and trust: what kind of college do you think would be good for me? What should I be looking for? Ask yourself what you think you might want in a college and what you hope to get out of it. Think about geography and areas that you might like to spend four to six years. Think about what sorts of things bring you pleasure and how you hope to pursue those when you’re older. Resist the pressure to decide what you’ll major in. Resist the temptation to look at college rankings. Resist the pressure to think you’ve got to have this figured out.

Now is the time to make “college” less abstract and more specific. Get to know a handful of colleges. Pick a handful of different types of schools—large public university, small liberal arts college, medium-sized university—and spend some time researching them. Look at their admission web pages. Look at their profiles on BigFuture and Niche. Follow them on social media. It doesn’t really matter which colleges you choose at this point, or if they’re a good fit for you. Right now you’re just getting a feeling for colleges. When you find yourself wondering “what do colleges want?” you have a place to go look it up. Change the schools on your “following” list as much as you want, but start following and getting familiar with a few places.

When you get recruiting information from colleges, hold on to it. Make a special email folder to archive all the "college stuff.” Have a box to keep all the materials you get in the mail. You don’t have to examine it all closely and make decisions about schools—but keep those resources near you. When it comes time to find a school that’s a good fit, starting with the ones who reach out to you early is a great strategy.

Find a mentor. You need an adult you can trust to give you advice. Academic advice; personal advice; advice about how and where to find further resources. An adult, other than a family member, who you see and speak to even when it’s not required. So a teacher that you can talk to outside of class, or a coach that you can talk to outside of practice, or a minister or spiritual leader you can talk to outside of regular worship. There are a lot of factors that go into productive, independent, happy adulthood. There’s no single magic formula. But having a mentor is one of the biggest factors, and it’s often overlooked. Finding a mentor has a lot of the same risks as making a new friend. You have to be willing to accept rejection and awkwardness. But it’s really hard to go through life without friends, and it’s really hard to go through life without mentors. If you haven’t got at least someone who fits the description, then there’s no better way to spend your time than searching for someone who will.

Expand your interests. Assuming that you’re not completely bombing any of your classes or dealing with trauma, the place you should be pushing yourself isn’t with putting together college applications or getting that math grade two points higher. The place you should be pushing yourself is in your personal interests. Begin looking for a leadership position in your club or team. Read more books about your interests beyond what’s required. Look for mentors who can give you guidance. Explore careers that use the same skills. For example, if you’re passionate about soccer and a member of the soccer team, that’s fantastic. But don’t just show up to practice. Tell your coach you aim to be a team captain as soon as you can. Follow your favorite team, and also learn about the history of that team. Look for summer camps or programs where you can be an instructor. Be a soccer player, but also be a soccer leader.

Maybe sports aren’t your thing, but by now you’ve probably got some ideas about what your thing is. Push yourself to expand your skills and your presence in that thing—even if not’s academic or something school sponsored. If what you do is spend hours a day playing video games—no problem. But push yourself to do more. Design a video game yourself; take a break to learn an esoteric or alternative game; research the history of game design; join a competitive league. If that doesn’t sound interesting, if what you really want to do is keep spending hours passively doing what you’ve been doing for years, then it’s time to shut down the games. The problem isn’t video games, it’s that you’re using them to avoid exploring something you’re more interested in and better suited for.

It’s perfectly ok to be interested in whatever you’re interested in—assuming it’s not violent or self-destructive. But now is the time to expand your presence in that interest.

And keep repeating to yourself and whoever will listen: the best way to prepare for college is to be a good high school student. 

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Read these related posts:

   Finding the right college can be like finding the right bottle of wine

   Three myths about college admissions

   What to do with all that mail you’re getting

3. Ask a question in the comments section.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Zoe Herring.

Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.

What should current 9th and 10th graders do this summer?

You should not do anything that is boring or onerous just because you think it might “look good to colleges.” Colleges prefer that you are in interesting person, and there’s nothing interesting about wasting your time and energy just because you’re insecure about someone else’s approval. Don’t jump through any metaphorical hoops (or literal ones, either, I guess) based on vague ideas of what colleges want.

What should sophomores do this summer to be better prepared for college?

Train. You're like a professional athlete during the off-season. You get a lot more flexibility with your schedule and a lot fewer people watching you as you work, but you've got to spend this time productively. Does this mean to fill up your day with summer school classes and be a constant student? No. Like pro athletes, find another way to enhance the skills you have.

Think about your notable skills and talents, the things that you may want to emphasize on college applications. Now find interesting ways to hone those skills and talents. How can you best prove and improve your resilience, passion, intellectual curiosity, initiative, talent, creativity, empathy, or leadership? The more unlike another high school class or program the activity is, the better.

So, for example, going to a weeklong camp for debaters is good, but volunteering to do door-to-door canvasing for a local political campaign is better. Reading books ahead of time for your 11th grade English class is good, but starting a book club that focuses on foreign or lesser-known books is better. Taking a class for adults at the local community college is good, but teaching younger kids in a summer program is better. The most important thing is that you focus on yourself and the qualities you want to improve, not focus on a vague sense of "looks good to colleges." Do everything you can with your summer time--in any setting, be it a summer job, summer camp, traveling, or staying close to home--to be a better person, not have a better résumé. 

Push yourself. If you need to work or want a job, that's great. As far as college is concerned it really doesn't matter what that job is so long as you work hard at it and are reflective about what you learn from the job. As you go to work, remind yourself to work as hard as you can. And when you're done, ask yourself what you learned from that day's work. Those two things matter so much more to everyone than the job title or name of the company. 

If you don't need to work and don’t want to work, then make other plans. And here's the trick: treat it like a job, in the sense that you decide to do your best and be reflective. Even if you have the cushiest summer imaginable--maybe you're going to spend two months as a VIP on a cruise ship sailing around the Caribbean--you can still get a lot out of this. Just begin each day reminding yourself to make the most of the day, and end each day reflecting about what you learned. Whatever is you do, it can be useful for your college applications and useful for your productive and interesting life.

Go someplace new. Choose someplace you've never been that you can visit this summer. Geographically, it doesn't matter how close or far the place is, so long as it's new to you. It can be another country, another state, or another neighborhood. Try to get a sense of how people unlike yourself spend their days, and do it with an open and empathetic mind.

Goal of 20. Another way you can make the most of your summer is to give yourself a goal of 20. Make 20 visits to local museums or parks. Have 20 intentional interactions with older members of your family asking them about their experiences. Read 20 books. Watch 20 of the best movies of all time. Find 20 items to donate to charity. Run 20 miles, spread out over as many days as you need. The number 20 is arbitrary, but an arbitrary number helps make a vague idea an achievable goal. Every time you knock out one of your 20, remind yourself to be deliberate and reflective.

What should 9th graders do this summer to be better prepared for college?

Anything! You can do just about anything, I mean it. In terms of preparing for the next three years of high school, preparing for college, and preparing for productive adulthood, there's no magical activity that you really must do to get ready. Do your thing, no matter what it is (within reason--if your current thing is chaotic or self-destructive then take care of that first).

At this point, what you do isn't nearly as important as how you do it. Whether you're doing amazing, once-in-a-lifetime things like volunteering with veterinarians at a wildlife refuge in Botswana or mundane things like babysitting your little brother, you can make the most of it. Be reflective. Ask yourself "how did today go, and what can I do tomorrow that will be interesting?" Every day. Read something that relates to what you're doing. Even if all you're doing is walking aimlessly around the neighborhood trying to find someone to hang out with, stop at the local library and learn about the history of your neighborhood and go inside shops you've never been in before. Take photos of weird things you notice around the neighborhood. Be engaged with your world and your mind, whatever you're doing in the world. 

Write about your experiences. Writing about what you do on a regular basis serves several goals. For one, any college-bound person has got to be very comfortable with a lot of writing, so practicing on your own with your own assignments helps build up your discipline in a way that's more palatable to you. It will also help you maintain and deepen your self-reflection that's so vital for your off-time. You’re not trying to draft college application essays or make it into a novel. You’re just practicing writing in your own voice about what’s interesting to you.

Make a product. Toward the end of the summer, make some sort of product. Select some journal entries to make into full-on essays. Select and edit some photos to make a narrative photo essay. Make an interactive map of the places you visited. Make a book of advice for someone starting the job that you worked. Again, you can do almost anything. The idea is to curate and edit your experience into something that you can share. That's kind of a definition of education, isn't it?

Meet someone new. Right, of course you're going to meet new people over the summer. But what I'm talking about is to proactively and intentionally introduce yourself to new people that you've chosen to meet. Circumstance, coincidence, serendipity, and providence bring all sorts of people into our lives. That doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't work to bring others into our lives through our own intentions and effort.

Practice some form of meditation and contemplation. There's probably no better gift you can give yourself than to start the habit of meditation and contemplation. There are dozens of different traditions and techniques to fit any religious, cultural, and personal background. Here is a pretty solid introduction to 23 of them. Choose one and try it. It doesn't have to be a religious or spiritual exercise. It can just be good relaxation. 

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Read these other posts:

   What should current juniors do this summer?

   It’s not the choice you make, it’s how you explain it.

   The secret to success? Here are two of them.

3. Ask a question in the comments section.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth.

Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.

What 9th graders should do this spring

Work at being good at high school

You're halfway through your first year of high school, and there's so much to deal with. There are often a lot of positive things associated with this time: establishing new friendships and networks, trying out interesting electives, learning practical skills. But there's also plenty of negative things to deal with: disappointment, feeling overwhelmed, feeling disorganized, having difficulty figuring out where you belong. Take time--not just once but at least once a week--to identify what's going well and what isn't. What are the positives to accentuate and the negatives to eliminate? Being self-aware and honest with yourself is going to help you get through this year, and if you'll stay in that habit it will help you every year of high school and beyond.

Improve your grades. Set modest and achievable goals--like improving your grade in each class by just three points--and track your progress at that goal. Do this in a positive way by studying a little harder and giving an extra half hour of effort, but also do this in a negative way in the sense of working to eliminate one bad habit or time-waster. 

Look for a mentor. Maybe you've already got a teacher, coach, or counselor who is a mentor to you. If not, go find one. You need to have at least one non-family adult who you trust to give you advice, to listen to you, and to have an academic relationship with beyond the time in the classroom. Maybe your school has provided you a mentor though some sort of advocacy program, but maybe that teacher is not really going to be a mentor to you for whatever reason. 

Continue to explore your interests. Remember that the whole point of education is to help you be a productive, happy, and interesting person. You can’t and shouldn’t wait until some future date to start working on those things. Explore activities and interests that you haven’t before. Try out a new club, sit somewhere different for lunch, find an interesting question to ask a teacher you haven’t connected with yet. The great thing about high school is that you get to do a lot of growing and changing and developing—you’re not stuck being the same person you were at the beginning of this year. But the hard part is that you are in charge of that growth and development; it can’t happen passively. So try new things, read new things, listen to new things, talk about new things, think new things.

Build confidence and clarity. There are dozens of ways to actively reduce your stress and build your confidence. If you haven’t yet, try at least one. Practice meditation; begin a workout routine; join a book club; take a low-stress online course; take on an art project; volunteer; write a short story; find a mentor; be a mentor.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Read What Should I Be Doing Now? for other grades. Spring updates will available for all grades by the end of the week.

3. Ask a question in the comments section.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Zoe Herring.

Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.

Looking forward to winter break for 9th, 10th, and 11th graders

What does a non-senior high school student need to do over this winter break to help prepare for college? In most senses, nothing. This is a break, after all. And, unlike 12th graders, you’re not finishing up applications for an early January deadline.

But in another sense, this is a great time to work on college applications, in the most broad way. The best way to approach college admission is as the beginning of a relationship. You’re trying to find the best match for you as a whole person. It’s not about proving that you’re worthy, or trying to rack up a lot of “impressive” things for your resume. You are, however, trying to be the best whole person that you can, and a break from school is a good time to plan and practice.

First, look over what I wrote for seniors. On top of finishing up college applications, I suggest that they should rest, read, re-asses, and spend quality time with people. Those are all true for you as well. Below is a list, which I first put together for my own 15 year-old, of things to try over the break that are neither difficult work nor passive consuming. I hope you’ll try some.

Go for a walk long walk, at least 30 minutes. Don’t play music or have any distractions. If you’re already a walker, take a different route than you’re used to. Pay attention to all your senses as you walk.

Watch some Healthy Gamer videos.

Clean and organize your room, bit by bit. Choose a small, discrete section--like a single shelf on a bookcase or one part of your desk--and clean it thoroughly. Then, when you’re ready, move on to the next. If you have the time, energy, and ambition, do a full “Konmari” of your room.

Read a novel. A good one. Preferably by an author you’ve never heard of. Read with your full attention.

Begin a meditation practice if you haven’t already got one. I like Andrew Weiss’s Beginning Mindfulness.

Improve your organization. I like Dan Charnas’s Everything in its Place: The Power of Mis-en-place to Organize Your Life, Work, and Mind.

Listen to some music. Preferably something you’ve never listened to before. Listen with your full attention.

Choose a work of art and learn as much about it as you can. Find information about it from as many good sources as possible. If it’s a work you can see in person over the break, even better.

Do a creative writing exercise.

Read a college profile. Or more than one.

Watch some School of Life videos.

Choose a place you’ve never been and plan an imaginary vacation there. Research online. Be as detailed as possible in your itinerary, learning as much as you can about the place.

Stretch. Then exercise.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Check out three related Apply with Sanity posts:

   Treat it like a relationship.

   The secret to success? Here are two of them!

3. Ask a question in the comments section.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth.

Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.