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August Checklist for High School Juniors


Because the days are long, but the weeks are short, monthly checklists are a great way to keep students organized for the end goal of "I'm a freshman, and I have no debt!" Well, that's what parents hope, lol. So between college visits, extracurricular activities, financial game plans and courses and papers, there's a pretty healthy bank of information for the checklist. Starting with....
College Visits
We are extremely lucky to be located so close to some outstanding colleges, so why not start your college visits in the tri-county area?

Cal Lutheran: https://www.callutheran.edu/admission/undergraduate/visit/schedule.html
This campus tour lasts about an hour and a half, and is easily scheduled during a minimum day. Pro tip? Taking the tour enables you to a 10% discount at the campus store for the day. Interested in a STEM career? Cal Lutheran offers a fantastic STEM Academy for incoming freshmen – it’s a free, 3 week summer program where students live on campus and get a jumpstart on their science, technology, engineering and/or math freshman classes. More information here: https://www.callutheran.edu/allies/academy/

CSUCI: https://www.csuci.edu/visit-campus/tours/families-individuals/index.htm
CSUCI offers online scheduling for tours; while most tours are offered weekdays at 11:30am, they do offer “Campus Preview Days” on select Saturdays from 10:00am-1:00pm. The Campus Preview Days in 2018 are: Sept. 15th, Oct. 13th, and Nov. 17th, and you can RSVP online here: https://csuci.askadmissions.net/Portal/EI/GroupUrl?gid=5304598ab304ba231649a993c98d12f16fddc9

UCSB: http://admissions.sa.ucsb.edu/visit-ucsb/tours The UCSB Visitor Center is open Monday-Friday from 9am-4pm; while this may not work well during the school year, consider scheduling a visit during Winter Break! The campus is also open for Saturday tours in April and May of 2019.

Pepperdine: https://seaver.pepperdine.edu/about/visit/campustours/ Pepperdine offers online scheduling for tours – they usually need about one month’s notice, but the tour offers the opportunity to audit a class or to meet with professors. Stop by Financial Aid while you’re there, and you could find out about financial aid packages and scholarships that aren’t available through Googling.

Extracurricular Activities
This isn’t going to be a huge shock: College Admissions officials will be more impressed by a unique and unusual extracurricular activity than one that well, isn’t. So what’s unique and unusual about Ventura County? Five words: WE HAVE A NATIONAL PARK.

Channel Islands National Park is always looking for teenage volunteers, and what better start to a college admissions essay than “The Summer I Cat-Herded Foxes…Island Foxes”. Check out the opportunities here: https://www.nps.gov/chis/getinvolved/volunteer.htm

If fox-herding doesn’t make your heart soar, try soaring for real! The Civil Air Patrol (CAP) California Wing Camarillo Squadron 61 offers a 16-step cadet program that includes aerospace education, leadership training, physical fitness and moral leadership. Cadets can compete for academic scholarships in fields such as engineering, science, aerospace medicine, meteorology and more. Cadets meet every Tuesday from 6:30-9:00pm at the Camarillo Airport. For more information, check out the link:  http://www.cawgcap.org/cap-missions/cadet-programs   

Financial Game Plans
Most students and families start college planning at a “Yep, it’s a good idea to save for it, and scholarships would be great”, but don’t really know how to launch into a hard-core “All grants and scholarships, no debt” game plan. 

Junior year is a great time to start the launching game plan! It’s the best time to become educated, research the availability of need and merit-based scholarships and aid, learn about ways Free Applications for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and  the College Board’s PROFILE program help you get financing, and how to use net-price calculators to understand what the real costs of college are.

It’s a given that the better your grades and test scores are, the better the chances are for your receiving merit and other scholarships, and the first big test for juniors is the PSAT on Oct. 10th.  

For more resources, check out Lynn O’Shaughnessy’s The College Solution and her blog, and the very informative FinAid.org and Fastweb.com websites.
Courses and Papers

Because a number of colleges ask for a writing sample as a part of their applications, start saving some of your best English, history, and other papers during your junior year, and don’t be shy about asking your teachers which papers make you seem like the best “colleges would kill to have me” student.

Good luck, and never stop learning,
Anna
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