Recently, I met some parents who had two kids. One was in 8th grade, and the other, a sophomore in high school. The parents and I had a couple of conversations about plans after high school. Because I am graduating soon, and have been thinking about college a lot, they wanted to see where my mind was at. After talking to them for a while about college, and where I have been accepted so far, they were asking me about their children and their academics.

The mom had mentioned that her son, who was in 8th grade, is a very studious child. He has already taken a couple of high school courses and is super on top of his school and his grades. The other, however, is not. She is a sophomore in high school. She tends to go out with her friends all the time and is not focused on school at all. Her mom had mentioned to me that she was failing most of her classes and school was not a big priority for her.

I asked her what her plans were after high school, and she said to go to college. I told her that during my sophomore year, I was in quarantine, and I also was not as focused as I should have been. That’s because, during quarantine, the online courses were a lot easier than in person courses. I was getting A’s without having to try that hard. 

But I told her mom that if she plans to go to college after high school, that she should be more focused on her academics. But I also had mentioned that sophomore year is not the year where students in high school seem to be the most focused. I told her that I think her sophomore year could be spent having fun if her junior year she decides to nail down and bring her GPA up. So that brings me to the question, which year in high school is the most important? I believe that it is your junior year. If you are focused during your junior year, get good grades, and prep for your SAT and ACT, you have a good chance at getting into the colleges that you want to.

So this is not to say that you shouldn’t be focused all four years of high school, because colleges do look at your transcript for all four years. However, if there would be one year to really nail down and focus, I believe it would be your junior year.