How to Prepare For College

If you are planning to go to college, there are many college preparation tips that of which you should be aware. Our college preparation resources are designed to help guide you every step of the way, regardless of whether you have no idea how to start preparing for college admissions or know what you need to do but also need some help.

Explore our college preparation tools, including a College Planning Guide containing detailed college preparation action plans, a College Admissions Action Plan with a detailed and strategic calendar starting at the 8th grade level, and a College Admissions Testing Guide that outlines various college admission tests like the SAT and ACT.

College Planning Milestones

Our College Planning Guide serves as an overview of the general things which you will need to accomplish during each of your high school years. You can use this as a reminder; a checklist to make sure you have all the information you need or as a preview of what you need to be thinking as you plan for college. For more detailed instructions, you will want to review our detailed College Admissions Action Plans.

Detailed College Admissions Action Plan

For detailed descriptions of college preparation activities sorted by grade-level and month, review our action plans. Our action plans will serve as a month-by-month planning and instruction guide for you. You should also share them with your parents so they know what you're going to need to do, as many items require their input.

• 8th Grade Action Plan
• 9th Grade (High School Freshman) Action Plan
• 10th Grade (High School Sophomore) Action Plan
• 11th Grade (High School Junior) Action Plan
• 12th Grade (High School Senior) Action Plan

Tests and Test Preparation (both required and optional)

A discussion of college preparation would not be complete without discussing admissions tests. There are numerous tests and practice tests with which you should be familiar. Each test is referred to in our College Planning Guide and detailed College Admissions Action Plans and provides helpful links. Here is a list of additional resources on test preparation:

• PSAT Test
• AP Exams
• CLEP Test
• ACT Test
• SAT Subject Tests
• SAT Test
• TOEFL Test (Test of English as a Foreign Language) - Only required of non-native English speakers beyond the 11th grade.