When to start doing things for college? (Writing essays, applying, getting letters of rec,ect)Answered
I just started my junior year a few weeks ago, and my goal is to get into a good school for psych, and eventually become a therapist, most likely in marriage and family. Everyone I ask keeps giving me different answers on when to start fully getting ready to do things for applying for colleges. Some people say to start now or later in the year, while others are telling me to wait until my senior year to even get started. Should I start some things now, or should I just wait?
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3 answers
Here's my advice: UTILIZE your summer (meaning, the summer before senior year). Here's when I started working on everything and my recs for each:
Writing Essays: I wrote all my drafts and finalized my personal statement in the summer, saving supplemental essays for the fall of senior year. You can start writing supplementals as early as August 1st, as that's when they release.
Applying: You can as early as August 1st, HOWEVER, I didn't apply to any that early because I wanted my applications to be strong and high-quality. If you're ready, though, go for it.
Rec Letters: ASK IN THE SPRING. I asked in May, and I had all of them by mid-summer, far before I ever needed to beg for them like many people do after waiting until fall, when teachers are bombarded with requests. Make sure to provide your recommenders with a "brag sheet" so they'll know more about you and can write quality recs.
Start now. As you begin all parts of your application, you'll start realizing how you can improve your profile (GPA, coursework, extracurriculars, test scores, letter of rec, etc). Then you can work on each of those during junior year and have a better profile next year. Apply to colleges with low chances now and again next year. That also helps give more of a chance (just mention how you improved in your time applying if it asks have you applied before). Then you'll be relaxed when applying to colleges next year as you'll have fewer things to update.
The best time would be end of Junior year or summer of senior year as you do generally apply for college (college app) around the fall of your senior year.
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