Reflections of a Super-Junior
NEIRAD enilno edition
Welcome back, juniors. If you are anything like I was last year, I am sure you are positively pumped for the next nine months of school, especially after having listened to people tell you all summer that this will be the hardest year of your life.
Yes, junior year can be intimidating. APs, SATs, the College Search, races for Captain…the list of stressors goes on and on.
I am proud to say that I have just completed a junior year about as hectic and over-scheduled as humanly possible, and I am even more proud to say I survived. I did not emerge, though, without my fair share of battle scars.
So, I hate to break it to you, but what they say is kinda true: junior year is the hardest. You have to deal with all the added rigor of upperclassmen classes without any of the perks that come with being a senior. It is pretty-dang tough.
However, junior year doesn’t necessarily have to be a dreadful experience. There is nothing inherently evil about this period of your life. In fact, it can be a great time to really throw yourself into your interests and accomplish big things.
To do this, you need to approach junior year in the right way. There are some ways to make sure you’ll be stuck working until 2AM every night (hating every minute of it), and there are ways to make sure your third year here at DHS will be somewhat enjoyable.
I’d like to share some survival tips from my junior year that I hope will make it a little more bearable for you—things I did right, things I discovered, and things I wish someone had told me before August 29.
On Hopscotching
First things first, many of you may be signed up for both Honors American Literature and AP US because your teachers told you that taking mixed honors and regular—known as hop-scotching—is automatic death. If so, on your first day your teachers in these classes will tell you that their courses are the hardest ones you will have ever encountered.
The first statement is total bull. The second statement is entirely accurate.
I left my first day of AP US shaking. It was my 4th AP in an all-honors schedule, and I felt like I was being given a death sentence. I went and talked with my guidance counselor, who suggested I switch into a 300-level American History or Lit section.
This advice ran contrary to everything my sophomore teachers had told me–specifically, that the 300 History and Literature classes are largely intertwined and that it is near impossible to isolate one from the other.
I have found this to be a complete exaggeration. I dropped down to 300 History, and it was the greatest decision I made all year, bar none.
Hop-scotching rocks.
I found that the Literature and History classes in my 300 American Studies section rarely combined. When they did, I would either miss a period of a double-History lecture (easy to make up with other people’s notes), or be given a free period while non-hop-scotchers had a double-English class.
Basically, hop-scotching conflicts always seemed to work in my favor, usually canceling work out instead of creating duplicate assignments between my honors and regular classes. Basically, the system doesn’t beat you when you hop-scotch. You beat the system. And did I say it rocks?
If you think you want to make a change, it is not too late. I officially switched on the third day of school, and I would imagine your counselor would give you a good week and a half to make a switch. If you seem interested, start a dialogue with your guidance counselor and your teachers.
For those of you who do plan on sticking with AP US: Godspeed and fair warning. I’ve been through BC Calc, AP Chem, and AP French, three APs considered among the hardest in the entire school. From what I’ve observed, they don’t even begin to compare with AP US. That class is easily the most taxing in the school.
The course is so hard not because of the material, but because of its curriculum. AP US’ workload is off the charts. Prepare for endless readings, tests, projects, and new material up to the day before the AP exam. If you have Clarke especially, then hold on to your tricorne hats. If you’re into history, I don’t mean to scare you away. Some students love the class, and you will definitely learn a lot in it. You can do it, but beware–it won’t always be fun, and it will never be ‘easy’.
Preparing for AP Tests
Speaking of APs, if you are enrolled in one, then the class will be one of your biggest stressors this year. Here are a couple of pointers for surviving them:
Usually, exams are the first and second weeks of May. Luckily for you juniors, exams don’t start until May 7th, giving you a few more precious days to prepare. This means you have no excuse to put off reviewing until the night before!
The best time to study for APs is mid-April, roughly three weeks before exams start. Next year, that happens to fall over April break. Initially, you should go back through your notes and textbooks and make yourself an outline of the entire course, chapter by chapter. This is a grueling task, especially if you have multiple APs, but it is worth while!
Don’t go crazy and lock yourself in a cell doing prep work all break–you will definitely need the downtime to de-stress–but try to get this initial, effort-intensive chunk of studying done as soon as possible.
This way, when you come back to school, you will not have to drudge through your notes while dealing with other assignments. You can focus more exclusively on your weakest points and make these stronger. If you prepare well enough in these early weeks, you should not even have to study the night before your test.
Your notes and text book are your best tools for review, but I hear that “Crash Course” prep books are great if you want something extra. They are perfectly concise–containing everything you need to know and nothing you don’t.
But, I’d say don’t bother with a big, honking Kaplan-type book. They are rendered obsolete by your textbook and the practice AP Exams your teachers will give you (second most valuable study recourse, for your sake please do them). If you are responsible and work on your own, a Kaplan book is total overkill and will basically just stress you out.
As a reward for working so hard all year, your classes will be practically finished after your exam. You will not have nearly as much homework, just some long-term projects to chug along at. Many APs hold their finals before exams as opposed to in June, allowing you to really chill out at the end of the year.
SATs, ACTs: the Standardized Tests
The other big tests of the year are the SATs and ACTs. Adults seem to make a big deal about these, but college admissions reps will tell you they rank below both your transcript and essay/recommendations on your application.
You cannot really study for either of these tests. You can acquaint yourself with their formats and learn strategies to attack problems–a very wise endeavor for sure. This can be accomplished with either a prep class or a book. Depending on how self-motivated you are, pick one or the other. You are under no obligation to spend 8 hours a week at a prep course.
Don’t worry about taking them a zillion times either. I took my SATs for the first time in June. I wouldn’t recommend that in retrospect, but you can always take them in October of senior year if you’re really not happy with your scores. So take it easy, and don’t sign up for a test during a season when you think you will be too busy to prepare.
The Beginning of the College Process
Theoretically, junior year will be the start of your college process. As much as you might want guidance or your parents to help you here, neither of these groups can do too much. The ball is really in your court.
You do not have to know what you want to major in to start thinking of schools. Think about the kind of clubs, sports, and programs you want and try to find schools that match these interests.
The internet is a good place to do this. In the first phase of the process, visiting a school’s website is as important as visiting a school itself. You cannot get a feel for the campus online, but you can find everything you would learn at an information session from your laptop.
I would suggest not to go crazy visiting schools over April Break. If you are not practicing with a team over any break, then you will need the time to detox and catch up on sleep. You cannot do this trying to visit 10 schools in 5 days. You can do your visits over the summer and even into senior year. As far as colleges go, junior year is a time to think and expose, not to decide.
If you want to play a varsity sport, start contacting coaches over the winter. Just a little hi my name is e-mail will do. Coaches cannot call or visit prospective athletes until early June, but it is nice to be on the radar of a program you are interested in.
Again, though, no rush. Even if you wait until late May to contact a coach, you will still get a reply if you are competitive to get in a program. You may have missed your chance for a major scholarship at a D-1 school by then, but don’t count on one anyways. These are rare.
So have fun junior year! Don’t quit all your extracurriculars. Be reasonable about what you can handle, but don’t stop doing what you love. That is the last thing admissions officers want to see, and if you have no fun during the school year, and if you have no fun during the school year you will go crazy!
Prom: The Semi-Reward
If nothing else, you have prom to look forward to! There is no too-soon time to ask your date. Usually the prom drama, or prama, starts in early April. Girls are in fact allowed to ask guys. You don’t have to want to date your date, but it helps. Bow ties are preferred over standard ties. Have fun with it–don’t stress!!!
That’s the main theme for the year: don’t stress. Juniors create so much stress for themselves by over-scheduling themselves with things they could deal with senior year. So chill out. Do what you want to do, not what you think you have to do, as long as what you’re doing isn’t stupid. In the end, this is really the only advice you need. Good luck!
