Omniac Attack!

Hey all!

A new school year is right around the corner, if it hasn't gotten to you already, and there are always things you can be doing to improve your college applications regardless of your current grade.  Every year, students of every grade level have questions about things they can do to start prepping for college.  As always, Omniac is here with some answers!

So, without further delay, here are a few simple tips that any student can use to help prepare for college!

Freshman Year
In a lot of ways, freshman year is the most important year because it sets the tone for your entire high school career.  Rock the socks off it, and you've put yourself in a great position to do the same for the next three years.  But if you blow it, you'll spend those same three years trying to dig yourself out of a very, very deep hole.

1.  Study, Study, Study!
The number 1 thing you can get taken care ofduring freshman year is GRADES, GRADES, GRADES! High school GPA is the biggest clue as to how well a student will do in college and it's the most important part of your application.  The earlier you can lock down your grades, the better you'll look to colleges.

2. Embrace your next 4 years!
After you get your grades where you want them, the next most important thing is to fully experience high school.  Like it or not, this is where you'll spend the next 4 years of your life, and you can make yourself have a great time, or a miserable time.  Obviously the better time you're having, the better you'll do academically.  Make some more friends, check out sports, or band, or the myriad other clubs that every campus offers.  Find your niche, find the thing that makes you special and colleges WILL notice.

Sophomore Year!
You're a year older, a year wiser, and you're hopefully well on your way to having that whole "high school thing" figured out.  There are good and bad things about sophomore year: the Good is that you're not a freshman anymore.  The Bad, though, is that you're kinda like the middle child of the school.  You don't get all the cool stuff that the juniors and seniors get, but you're held to a much higher standard than the freshmen.  That doesn't mean you can let sophomore year go to waste.  There are still lots of things you can be doing to make this year great!

1. Find "Yourself" and make that person AWESOME!
After the obvious (keep those grades up!), the best thing to work on is YOU!  Ya know, the unique individual things that make you stand out.  Hopefully, you have a couple of ideas about what those things are, and you might have even found extra curricular activities that let you show your passions off.  Dive as deep as you can into your activities and make them your own!

2.  Take your show on the road!
Let's say that you've been finding things out about yourself that are unique and great and you've been exploring those things through your school.  Fantastic!  But there are plenty of other avenues outside of school that are just as good, if not better.  Always remember that, in addition to big changes in your education, your high school years are about big changes to you and your community.  Taking whatever skills and talents you have to help better your community is not only just an all-around good thing, but it will look even better on your application than school-sponsored events!

Thanks a lot for checking in with the first part of this series.  We certainly hope that all Freshmen and Sophomores are able to put these ideas to good use so they can have a spectacular start to high school!  Come back next time to see our tips for upper classman!