Senior Year - February/March

Please visit http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/ for information related to college financial aid. Make sure everyone fills out the information with FAFSA even if the financial need does not exist at the point.

Other useful sites, http://www.finaid.org/; http://www.fastweb.com/

Junior Year - January/February

It is now SAT/ACT time! Make sure every college-bound student, that is everybody here at CHS, has attempted them at least once before the beginning of the summer.

College visit should also be something of consideration if it has not already happened. Once again, please look at the location, setting, size, affiliation, security, selectivity, program/major, and cost when making plans for visit.

Last but not least, keep up with your grades!

Senior Year - December/January

By now, all the students should have received notices on their "Early Decision" application status. I am sure lots of joy for some and much disappointment for many. What is next? For those with good news, it is time to figure out how t0 lower the cost of attending. Unfortunately for most of them, not a whole lot of choices out there due to the nature of the "Binding Admission" option, unless for those lucky few gotten into a school with the actual "Need-Blind" admission policy. For those without any good news, it is time to seriously consider/reconsider expanding your search a bit, regardless what is being offered, deferred, wait-listed, or even denied/rejected. Some of great schools you have ignored may still be OK for you to submit your application, meaning, their deadline has not passed. "Honors College", affiliated with big public institutions, should be one of the those viable options.

Junior Year - November/December

PSAT is done with. The only thing left to do other than maintaining/improving your grades/GPA is to take the regular SAT/ACT.

Please make sure that you are adequately prepped. Also, please note that both SAT and ACT are recommended.

Sophomore Year

Work on improving rank/GPA - take more challenging classes. Take PSAT in the fall. Really get into PSAT/SAT prep in the spring after getting the PSAT score report. Get familiarized with collegeboard.com, especially mycollegequickstart.

Freshman Year

Meet with your counselor specifically to work out a 4-year-plan. Two things need to be accomplished when developing such a plan. One is to fulfill the graduation requirements. The other is to start thinking about a post-secondary goal. To answer the usual question, "What do I want to do after my graduation?" College? Job? Military services? Target rank/GPA.

8th Grade

Start taking one or two high school credited classes if ready and available. Really start working on a preliminary 4-year-plan in the spring with teachers/counselors.