What 10th Grade Students Should Do to Get Off to A Good Start
Elton Lin
For many high school students, fall semester has already started. Granted, school may look and feel different for many students this year, but over the next few weeks, we’ll be highlighting some steps that high school students should be taking to prepare themselves for a strong start to the school year, as well as ways that students can set themselves up for strong admissions results in their senior year. The topics we discuss here are advice and steps we use to plan with our own students, and if you’d like to see how we can tailor a specific plan for you, feel free to request a free consultation.
Standardized Testing
I’m sure parents and students alike have heard the stories from spring of 2020; nearly every standardized test after March of 2020 has been cancelled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Given the fact that so many seniors don’t have test scores, how are they applying for college?
The vast majority of schools have mitigated this issue by de-emphasizing or eliminating the standardized testing aspect of admissions. You may have heard of the test-optional and test-blind policies that many schools are implementing. Thus, the class of 2021 will not need a standardized test score to apply to many schools. Granted, many of the new adopters of test-optional policies have announced that it will be only for one year, so the situation may change for the class of 2022. We will continue to monitor whether schools continue to adopt a test-optional or test-blind policy or revert to requiring a standardized test score to apply.
Current 10th graders should not worry about taking standardized tests, specifically the SAT and ACT. As of September 2020, most tests are still in flux, and it can be difficult to find a seat for an exam. At the same time, it’s likely that your 11th grade math and English classes will cover subjects that the SAT I and ACT may ask. These courses will likely cover some of the material that SAT I and ACT will cover.
High School Curriculum
Parents and students often ask us which courses students should be taking to stand out in the application process. For some high schools, 10th grade might be your first chance at taking AP courses. For others, AP courses may be inaccessible until 11th grade. How do admissions readers identify this when reading applicants?
A Pepperdine admissions officer used the term “rigor with reason”, and this is what we suggest as well. Admissions readers don’t just count up how many APs you took or use your GPA alone in their considerations; they will scrutinize what courses were offered at your school and what your schedule looked like each year of high school. Did your school only allow 11th graders to take APs? Did your school get rid of foreign languages recently? Admissions readers will weigh these factors and often recalculate your GPA so that they have a more helpful value to compare you with other applicants. Thus, students and parents need not worry about a potential disadvantage to not having access to AP courses, as the admissions readers will understand the school’s restriction.
If you really want to show excellence in a particular subject that your school doesn’t offer or want to explore a particular field not available at your high school, consider other options, like online courses or community college courses. Many students are taking Coursera courses for certificates to explore fields like data science and engineering. Another example could be wanting to learn more about astronomy and registering for that Intro to Astronomy class at your local community college. Additionally, cross-enrollment might boost your GPA and give you college credit.
Time (and Space) Management
The best advice we can give to 10th graders at this time is to focus on time management and study habits. We understand that school is strange this year; you’re spending some 6 hours on Zoom for school, then using your computer to do homework. Extracurriculars are also likely conducted with some form of social distance (which is probably just more Zoom). Last year, your screentime was probably racked up from homework and leisure time; now it’s nearly every hour of the day, and students are feeling the fatigue.
Some methodologies to mitigate this exhaustion include the Pomodoro method, where we recommend students spend a certain amount of time working, followed by a short break, usually starting with 25 minutes working and a 5 minute break. Consistency of the routine is what makes the Pomodoro method effective, and students can feel free to experiment with the exact timing for their schedule.
Other suggestions we have been trying to implement with our students include segmenting and working in different places, if possible. This is best described with CGP Grey’s Spaceship You video, where, at minimum, we recommend students separate work from leisure. If you have multiple spaces, ideally you would work in one and enjoy leisure time in the other. If not, even positioning your computer or chair differently for each activity is important to signal to and condition yourself into what you should be doing where.
Planning for 10th Grade
We’ve discussed how to tackle your coursework and extracurriculars, but now let’s figure out what to prioritize. We recommend students use this framework to classify their homework, extracurricular activities, and hobbies.
In our webinar with Phoebe Jue, we used this framework to explain that we want to live in quadrants 1 and 2 as much as possible in order to plan and control our schedules and activities. If students don’t understand their priorities, their homework might get done or students may try and cram it all in with an all-nighter.
Let’s consider a student with four upcoming activities. Today is Monday.
Math quiz on Wednesday.
Vocabulary quiz next Monday.
Video games with friends tomorrow night.
Your friend requests that you read through his essay due tomorrow.
The math quiz coming up on Wednesday would be urgent and important. Urgent, since it is a deadline coming up soon, and important because it has an explicit impact on your grade. Thus, this activity is in quadrant 1.
The vocabulary quiz on next Monday would be important but not urgent. It doesn’t have as urgent of a deadline as the math quiz, so we can plan on studying vocabulary later. Studying for the vocabulary quiz is in quadrant 2 for now but will likely become a quadrant 1 task in a few days.
Video games with your friends may seem like a quadrant 4 activity: not important, not urgent. That said, if video games are your way to relax, we think it should be quadrant 2: important but not urgent. Many hobbies will fall into this category, and with hobbies, the goal is not to eliminate them but to manage your time doing them. Moderation is key. Although it is more common for students to play video games for too long, it’s also possible that a student reads too many books and forgets about an assignment, or didn’t allocate enough time to finish baking cookies and now needs to juggle another task.
Your friend that needs the essay help is a quadrant 3 task: urgent but not important. Yes, it may seem mean or rude to tell your friend that you can’t read through it, but you need to study for your math quiz since that impacts your grades. Your friend’s essay grade may be important to him or her, but it is not important to you. Beware of being too nice in these situations and overcommitting at your detriment.
We recommend that students list out all their activities for the week and fill out this chart at least once just to see where all their activities are! Most students find that they can move items around, especially hobbies and fun activities, from quadrant 4 to quadrant 2 to try and apportion their time a little better.
Next Actions (recommend extra curricular activities)
Now that you’ve learned about these new strategies, how do you apply them? Consistency is key here; it’s no good to try all the strategies only to drop them next week. Pick one that you want to apply first, and do it consistently for the next two or three weeks. For example, consider starting with incorporating the Pomodoro method for math homework only. Then next week, try it for math and science. Slowly add more responsibilities under the new format so that you get used to the change and can make adjustments if necessary.
You may also be wondering if there are any new activities or extracurriculars we would recommend you add to your roster. These are a few we recommend you look into:
Quarantutors is a free online tutoring service that is actively recruiting high school students to teach K - 12 students. Apply to be a tutor for calculus, chemistry, creative writing, foreign language, and more here!
InspiritAI is a pre-college program created by Stanford alumni and graduate students. They’ve opened up registration for Fall 2020; no prior programming knowledge is required to start!
Polygence is an online academy that matches high school students with mentors in undergraduate and graduate studies to create a research project. Subjects include computer science, politics, fine arts, architecture, and law!
If you want more details about how these methods can help or how to truly implement them, feel free to request a free consultation with us and we can talk some more about your goals and how we can help!