There are a million things going on leading up to your senior year and college. It sometimes seems like you can’t keep track of everything.

So what are some things that you need to be doing leading up to your senior year of high school and college? Here are the biggest three things that people overlook when going into their senior year of high school and college!

Plan Out Standardized Tests & Junior/Senior Year Classes

This is the big one. These are things that you don’t want to overlook and then realize that it’s too late. As a sophomore, some of the things that you should be working on is figuring out which and how many AP (Advanced Placement) or IB (International Baccalaureate) classes that you want to take during your junior and senior years. Usually a career counselor will be able to help you out and figure how many is a good amount and make sure that you’re still fulfilling your general requirements for your high school diploma. You want to do this in advance to your junior and senior years since it is much easier to forecast for these ahead of time then have the first day of junior year roll around and try to change up your whole schedule.

The next is to have a plan when it comes to when you’re going to be taking your standardized tests like the ACT and SAT. Ideally, I recommend that you take these during your junior year and have a plan of when you’ll be taking them. You’ll want to make sure that it’s not too early where you haven’t covered necessary information yet, but not too late where you don’t have a chance to retake it before your college apps are due in case you want to raise your score. Based on my personal experience, I find that the early spring of your junior year is a good time for this. This also gives you time to schedule another test if you need to boost your score to make yourself more competitive in the college application process.

Don’t Focus Only On School

While it’s easy to put all your focus on getting good grades and test scores, your ultimately not going to be happy if you leave no time to grow as a person during your high school career. If there are times that you need to take a study break to do a spontaneous road trip with your friends, do it! Maybe it’s a Friday night before a test the next week and your friends are all going out for ice cream, do it! While this shouldn’t override studying all the time, you need to also pick and choose when to nurture your friendships or your schoolwork. Remember, your college application is going to be an overview of who you are as a person holistically and some of these experiences may come into play. Plus, you’re going to walk away with a much more positive experience from high school if you focus on all aspects of high school – academic, sports, extracurricular activities, social – than if you were to just focus on one area. Understand when you need to study hard, but also don’t worry about only studying and doing nothing else for your four years.

Booking a Senior Photographer

And of course I have to throw this one in here given that I’m a senior photographer ???? Don’t forget to book your senior photographer!

Senior photographers book up early and the last thing that you want to have happen is to not have the photographer that you want because they’re all booked up!

You should begin looking for your senior photographer starting the late winter and spring of your junior year! (A.k.a. about 6-9 months before the summer before your senior year when your photos will be taken.)

When looking for a senior photographer, it’s a big decision so make sure to also check out these 10 Tips for Finding the Perfect Senior Photographer!

Download the Full Checklist to Getting Ready For Senior Year & College Here!

Want to make sure that you don’t miss a single thing leading up to your senior year and college? Click here or the image above to download the FREE, full checklist to Getting Ready for Senior Year & College!

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Sean Brown is a senior portrait photographer based out of Vancouver Washington and Portland Oregon. His goal is to bring out every senior’s personality in their images and is dedicated to making sure that every senior session is different so that no two senior images are alike. Sean is now booking the Class of 2020. To learn more about being an SBP Senior, click here.