Planning For College: A Four Year Timeline

You may be wondering if there is anything you should be doing to prepare in 9th and 10th grades for the college admission process. Given the fever pitch of the college admission process in New York City and in the national media in general, it’s easy to feel like you’re already behind.

You are not. The reality is this: for this process to go well, it has to correspond to adolescent development and certain fixed benchmarks along the high school trajectory. Experience clearly shows that starting too early results in a process focused on the wrong ideas: “how do I get in?” becomes more important than “what am I looking for?” because this last question cannot yet be adequately tackled, regardless of how smart, mature, or high-achieving a student might be.

At Berkeley Carroll, we feel strongly that students are best prepared for the college process if they concentrate on learning and their high school education first, honing interests and developing passions.

Having said this, we agree that it is important for students and families to have a sense of what awaits on the college horizon in order to be ready for the next steps. We have created the following Four Year College Planning Guide to assist families in navigating the years ahead.