The College Application Timeline: When to Start and What to Do Each Year

Freshman year is about building the foundation. It should be taken as a year of self-discovery: strengths, weaknesses, likes and dislikes, everything.

Focusing strongly on GPA is essential, since freshman grades count toward the cumulative GPA. But the goal isn't chasing what looks good on a college application. It's discovering what could grow into a lasting, meaningful project. That's what makes a strong foundation.

Moving on to sophomore year, interests and passions should become clearer. The path forward should build on what was learned freshman year about how to spend that time. If available, IB and AP classes should start to be considered, and keeping grades from slipping is an essential part of the plan.

This is the time to move on from exploring different options to actually committing to something long term: sports, clubs, volunteering. It's not about quantity but about the cohesiveness of the profile.

The PSAT and a testing baseline

The PSAT is a big part of sophomore year, and it's the first taste of standardized testing in high school. It should be taken, along with practice tests, to start a baseline for junior year, when the SAT is usually taken.

This is also the time to start researching colleges, to know what they look for and how to apply these things to the profile that is being built. Cohesiveness above all.

Most people label it as the most important year in the college application process, and in some sense they are correct. It's important to take the hardest classes available, since junior year is the one admissions officers scrutinize most closely.

Testing and superscoring

The SAT should be taken in junior year to have scores ready by the time college application season comes. Students are encouraged to take the exam at least three times to take advantage of superscoring, where colleges combine a student's top section scores across test dates into the highest possible composite score.

Lists, paperwork, and recommendations

This is also when the official college list should start to be built. Senior year is approaching fast, and most applications are due in its first half, so it's important to get ahead on things like CSS Profile and FAFSA documentation before then to avoid a last-minute scramble.

Building strong relationships with teachers matters too, since recommendation letters are often required, and those letters should reflect and reinforce the student's overall profile.

The summer between junior and senior year is when the first drafts of the Common App essay and supplemental essays should start taking shape. It's almost time to apply.

Finally, senior year, the year when everything comes together. The Common App opens August 1st every year, so this is the time to start working with the drafts from summer and to finalize college lists. This is not the time for uncertainty, and every decision from here on should be made with confidence. If needed this year, the SAT could also be retaken to try to get a higher score.

The FAFSA and CSS Profile open on October 1st, and since the documents have already been prepared, they're ready to go. This is an important step and a huge opportunity to get aid, and it works on a first-come, first-served basis.

November 1st is when most Early Decision and Early Action applications are due, and January 1st is when most Regular Decision applications should be submitted. February and March are when all the waiting happens. Everything should be submitted and out of the student's hands, and the decisions are released. All that's left to do now is decide.