A New School Year, A New Opportunity: What Every Student Should Focus on Right Now

Every fall brings new schedules, new teachers, new stacks of notebooks that still smell like the store. It’s also one of the most valuable, and most overlooked, moments in the entire college admission timeline.

The families I work with often assume the “real work” of admission starts junior year, when testing and college lists take center stage. In reality, the start of any school year should serve as a natural checkpoint. It’s a chance to take stock of where things stand and set intentions before the momentum of the school year takes over.

Here’s what I encourage every student — whether you’re in 9th grade or 12th — to thing about this month.

9th Grade: Build the Foundation, Don’t Rush It

Ninth grade isn’t about resumes or college lists. It’s about exploration and building self-awareness. This is the year to notice what’s starting to pique your interest, whether it’s in the classroom or outside of it. As you enter your first year of high school, try one or two new activities with curiosity and without the pressure of “will this look good for colleges?” Set a baseline for how you want to feel about your workload and involvement a year from now. Get comfortable with a simple system for tracking grades, activities, and accomplishments as you go — your future self will thank you.

10th Grade: Refine and Deepen

Sophomore year is where the exploration of the previous year starts to take shape. You likely have a better sense of your strengths and interests, and the goal this year is to lean into a few of them rather than spreading yourself thin. As you start the year, review the classes you’ve selected and confirm they align with where your interests are heading. Think about depth vs. breadth in your activities and pursuits. In what area(s) might you want to go deeper with your involvement? Tenth grade is also a good time to get an early introduction to standardized testing. The PSAT is offered every October and available to both sophomores and juniors. Taking it this year could be a great, low-pressure, practice opportunity.

Juniors: The Strategy Kicks Off

As we often say in the college admission world, junior year is the busiest and most consequential year of high school, and starting it with a plan makes an enormous difference. This is the year testing, course rigor, and activities start to matter most. If you’re a junior, make sure the level of your classes this fall is appropriately challenging based on your genuine curiosities, strengths, and bandwidth — not just what “colleges want to see.” While highly selective colleges value intellectual courage and ambition, they also respect students who challenge themselves thoughtfully and strategically. Resist the temptation to load up on APs and, instead, maintain a schedule that stretches you without breaking you.

Now is also a good time to map out a realistic testing timeline for the year — don’t let it sneak up on you in the spring! Also begin to give some thought to what you want in a college. Go beyond name recognition and consider the social environment, academic culture, size, location, and types of opportunities and experiences you’d want a college to offer.

Seniors: Organize Before You Sprint

Senior year opens with application season already on the horizon. The single best thing you can do at the start of the year is to get organized before the deadlines start piling up. Build a master list of schools, deadlines, and requirements. While it’s easy to add colleges to your list, keeping track of what you need to do for each of them requires planning and organizing.

If you didn’t start brainstorming for your college essay over the summer, make sure to do it now. Regardless of what essay prompt you choose, it requires self-reflection and personal narrative development. This takes time and intention, and you don’t want to put it off until a week before the application is due.

Before they become inundated with recommendation requests, start approaching the teachers you’ve identified as potential recommendation writers. When it comes to doing their best work, teachers aren’t any different than students. With the benefit of more time, chances are they’ll write a more thoughtful and detailed recommendation. If you wait until the last minute to ask, don’t expect the same quality and care in the letter they write. Asking early is one of the simplest ways to strengthen your application.

The Connecting Thread

Regardless of where you are in the process, the same principle applies: clarity now prevents chaos later. A few intentional hours at the start of the year — reviewing goals, checking on academic plans, getting organized — pay off many times over by December.

College admission can feel like a maze with no map. My work is to make sure every family has one that is tailored to where their student is, and where they’re headed.