Our guest blogger this week is David L. Hautanen, Jr. Director of Undergraduate Admissions and Recruitment
Congratulations on making it through the first half of the junior year! Hopefully you had a successful semester with your activities, athletics, and in your classes. As you probably know, your performance in your junior year courses is critically important in the college admission process. This is the last full year a college admissions committee is going to see when they are making a decision on your application. Even though the committee will see your first term or even your mid-year senior grades, and expect to see strong performance in a well-selected group of classes, the grades only reflect a short period of time. So you want to make sure your junior grades are the best possible.
In the meantime, you may have already started to hear from colleges about their program and inviting you to visit or attend programs on their campuses. You may even have heard from Northeastern University already! How did we get your contact information? You gave it to us. When you registered to take standardized testing like the PSAT, you indicated you would be willing to receive information from colleges.
If there is a college that you are interested in but haven’t heard from yet, go online and request more information about that school from their website. Most college admissions home pages have “inquiry” forms that you can fill out to get more information about the college. Usually this information enhances what you can learn from the website, so fill the form out in order to learn as much about the college as possible.
Another benefit to filling out these forms is that you will receive invitations to special on-campus events like open houses or special events sponsored by academic departments. Try to attend the events that interest you in person; don’t just rely on websites to aid your college search. Remember, the most successful college searches are the most well-informed, so remember to research schools and programs thoroughly to find out what colleges are right for you!
