Welcome to a New School Year!
Starting your school year strong.
This week marks the start of a new school year. New routines, new classes, new teachers, new content. All of the newness can be quite disorienting for students. It’s not uncommon to experience excitement, anxiety, hope, and fear. Perhaps all in one day!
A new school year also carries a lot of potential. Are you ready to rise to the occasion, and start your school year strong?
Starting Strong: Set Your Priorities
What’s important to you for the upcoming year? To earn the strongest grades you can? Maybe you want to make and keep new friends? Or is this year the year to join a new activity you’ve wanted to try? Perhaps you’re hoping to find an internship or job?
From a college planning standpoint, earning good grades means more opportunities down the road. Good grades in challenging courses remains the number one, most important thing most colleges look for in college admissions decisions. As such, I’ll always encourage students to prioritize academics. However, non-academic priorities are also important. Exploring new activities or starting a job help you to grow as a person and identify your why, or deeper reasons, for pursuing college. Starting your school year strong can help you find motivation for post-secondary studies.
Good grades in challenging courses remains the number one, most important thing most colleges look for in college admissions decisions.
Regardless of what your priorities are, don’t waste the start of the school year wandering aimlessly. Choose a priority and start moving! The practice of identifying priorities and setting out a plan to keep them ensures that you’re applying yourself and striving to reach your potential. One goal at a time. And, once you build momentum with one priority, the energy can transfer over into other priorities and goals, too!
If you’re interested in identifying and pursuing your priorities, consider writing a SMART goal. This resource is one of the best, most thorough tools I’ve seen for implementing SMART goals for high school students. Check it out if you’re serious about achieving big things this year!
Starting Strong: Commit to Studying
Good grades are easier to obtain when you are on top of your academic game from Day 1. Getting in the rhythm of good study habits at the start of the school year will help you learn the content and stay on top of your coursework. Here are some ways to commit to studying and acing your academics this year:
Take notes in your classes and review them at home.
Use your planner…in a way that makes sense to you.
Review each course syllabus and map out your big deadlines and projects.
Check out this list for more tips for starting your school year strong academically.
Starting Strong: Embrace Mistakes
Embrace mistakes? Absolutely! Mistakes and failures are actually essential for true learning and growth. In order to accomplish true growth and learning, we need to be in a place where we’re outside of our comfort zone, taking calculated risks. If you’re in a place where you are successful in every venture you try, you’re not pushing yourself or growing. Learning from mistakes, reflecting on failures teaches us how to move forward stronger and better.
Mistakes are inevitable; we’re all human and mistakes are a part of being human. We can’t choose if mistakes will happen, but we can choose how to approach and respond to mistakes. Learn how to embrace mistakes and practice a brave approach to challenges.
In conclusion, these tips won’t ensure that your friends will be in your same lunch or your classes all close to your locker. But these tips will help to ensure that you’re making the most of the new school year. Best of luck to you in starting your school year strong!
Interested in making the most of your school year to open up possibilities for post-secondary? Let’s chat!