It's time to start thinking about what happens AFTER high school. Whether you are in 9th Grade or 12th Grade, planning is your key to future success.   Here are some questions to consider:

Are your working hard and keeping the highest GPA possible? Remember whether you are career bound or college bound after high school, people will look at your transcript and make decisions about whether to hire you or admit you to college.

Have you started thinking about what will happen immediately after graduation? Will you go straight into the workforce or will you begin taking classes in a post-secondary school (ie. Technical school, traditional 4-year college, traditional community or junior college)

Do you know if you have all the correct credits to graduate? Depending on when and where you graduate determines what kind of credit and how many credits you need to graduate.

Have you taken an ACT and/or SAT (and in Texas, the TSI)? You should be preparing to take either the SAT or ACT AND the TSI before the fall of your 12th Grade year.

Have you started your college/career research? You should be thinking seriously about what you will do after graduation: 

• Will you start a traditional 4-year degree (BA)?

• Will you start a 2-year degree (Associates, certification, apprenticeship)?

• Will you start on-the-job training?

• Where would you like to do this?

Have you researched college costs? Go to your favorite college websites and look at the cost to go to school. 

Have you narrowed your list of colleges? You're only going to one college so applying to twenty may not be the best use of your time. It also costs the universities time and money if you apply without any intention of going. You should have no more than 10 college in which you are interested.

Do you know the job requirements and/or the admissions requirements for the job or college in which you are interested? Check the company or college website for information about admissions or application requirements.

Have you created an organization system to keep up with all of your college and career information? Start a folder, put a box on the floor in your bedroom, or put a file drawer somewhere so that you can keep all of your college information in one place. Create a rubic (with columns and rows) to compare colleges (ie. size, requirements, location, etc.) so that you can begin your decision about where you want to go.

Do you have your academic resumé in order? (awards, volunteer service, extracurricular activities)

Have you started your scholarship research? Even though MOST scholarships, grants, and other forms of financial aid are for graduating seniors, you can still research to see for which scholarships you are currently eligible or will be eligible.