The Dreaded Junior Year
How to Turn Overwhelm Into Something Manageable
This next statement won’t shock anyone who has a student currently in the throes of it: junior year is A LOT.
Classes and schedules have gotten more intense, which is why it’s hard in and of itself. Then, layer on the emotional stress of the juniors watching the seniors in their school go through the “five stages of grief” when it comes to applying to college. Let’s see, there is ”denial”, or procrastination on thinking about college; “anger”, or their righteous indignation about the ridiculously complicated task before them; “bargaining”, or the irrational ways that teens attempt to control outcomes they can’t control (lucky socks, anyone?); “depression”, or the despair that comes around each non-optimal admissions outcome; and finally, in late spring, “acceptance”, or students finally realizing that they’ve survived and will be moving on with their education.
But that’s not all–there is ACT/SAT testing to wrestle with, college lists, college visits, starting the common application, and let’s just say a general feeling of overwhelm that threatens to paralyze even the most well-adjusted teens and parents. “College” becomes one enormous, undefined task. Testing feels urgent but also takes forever. Essays loom as something both deeply personal and totally mysterious. Parents worry they’re missing something critical, while students feel pressure they can’t quite articulate — and often respond by avoiding the whole topic altogether.
This is where well-meaning families get stuck. They hold the entire admissions process in their heads at once, rather than breaking it into pieces that can actually be handled.
However, at the College Admissions Collective, we rely on “The Calm College Method” to structure the college application process in junior year. Instead of asking Where will my student get in? — an outcome no one can predict — we ask a much calmer, more useful question:
What are the specific goals that make junior year successful, regardless of admissions results?
The good news is this: junior year does not require doing everything. It requires doing a small number of concrete, specific things. When families refocus junior year away from outcomes they can’t control and toward goals they can complete, something surprising happens. The year is still busy, but it becomes manageable, and progress begins to occur.
Goal One: Staying Academically and Emotionally Intact
This may sound obvious, but it needs to be said out loud: the most important job of junior year is finishing junior year.
That means staying engaged in classes, continuing activities that matter to your student, and maintaining some semblance of balance. If things start to wobble here, the correct response is not to add more pressure. We sort of can’t believe that we have to write this, but the mental and physical health of teenagers should always be the most important thing to parents and educators. After all, colleges want freshmen to enter their institutions as just that–”fresh”, and not tired, burnt-out, and traumatized.
Goal Two: Building College Preferences (Not Making Decisions)
Junior year is about learning what’s out there — not locking anything in.
Students should start noticing patterns in what they respond to: campus size, location, academic style, teaching approach, social vibe. Parents should be learning, too, especially if their own college experience looks nothing like today’s admissions landscape. At this stage, students just need to expose themselves to information about colleges by doing some online research, attend a few in-person or virtual college visits, and observe their own reactions and preferences. Having this information will make the rest of the college search much easier.
As students refine their list of must-haves in a school, then they can start creating a college list in which all of the schools on the list can meet the students’ needs.
Goal Three: Beginning the Application
Do you want to know a secret? Juniors who work on their Common Application actually feel less stressed about the college application process than juniors who avoid it. Once students see what concrete steps are involved, it seems less nebulous and more doable. We recommend that students create a Common Application account, fill out the demographic information, and start creating a draft of their activities list and a rough draft of their personal statement. By getting the personal statement out of the way early in the process, students feel more confident in their ability to finish everything else.
One more thing that we ask juniors to do is to identify teachers that they think would write them a great recommendation letter. Asking these recommenders before school is out increases the chances that they will say yes.
Keep in mind that we are only recommending drafts of everything; a draft of a college list, a draft of the activities section, and a draft of the personal statement. Nothing has to be finalized or perfected yet.
Goal Four: Figuring out a testing plan
The ACT/SAT testing decision gets more and more complicated, now that each school can have their own, often unspoken, policy for how they value test scores.
However, if a student has a lot of difficulty with testing, or repeatedly scores poorly on practice tests, prepping and taking the ACT or SAT may just not be worth it, as it probably won’t bring the hoped-for results, but is certain to bring a lot of stress and misery.
If going forward with testing is on the agenda, start as early as you can, leaving enough time to have a couple of retakes and some test preparation, whether it be individual study (hard for kids to do), classes, or a tutor. Hopefully, by the end of the summer before senior year, testing should be done and dusted. However, if things start to go wrong, or the student gets too stressed, it may be time to look at a test-optional admissions strategy. Either way, it’s going to be fine.
What Junior Year Success Really Looks Like
In our years of parenting, we have developed what some may consider a rather low bar for whether or not a day was a success–if nobody died. To us, that reduces stress, and tomorrow’s always another day, right? The same principle applies to junior year. If your student is still alive and well, that’s great. If your student finishes junior year having made some real progress in these areas, that’s a fantastic bonus..
Junior year may still be the busiest year of high school. But it does not have to be the most miserable.
Reading this and wondering if you’re already behind?
You’re not.
If you want a clear, non-panicky overview of what junior year — and the rest of the college process — actually looks like, our Calm College Timeline can help.
It’s designed to meet families wherever they are and refocus attention on what’s realistic, doable, and within your control.