Check out the new college application planner for the 2023-2024 academic year, curated by Aralia Education Technology!
As a high school student, college is one of the most important transitions of your life, and requires years of planning before hitting that submit button on your dream school application. Being an international college student in America, I know how stressful the application can be, especially for international students who don’t have the opportunity to visit the schools they are interested in. Therefore, I want ed to develop a College Application Planner for students based on what I’ve used in the past. Organization and communication are extremely important in this cycle, and this planer is a guide and a tracking tool for your college applications.
The college search and timeline spreadsheets let you keep track of all your college information for comparison and access online on your phone and laptop. I’ve always recommended students make an online spreadsheet for their college search because you can easily update the latest information without the hassle of erasing and rewriting information in your physical planner.
Referring to the Grade 11 guideline in the four-year plan in high school , I’ve shortened and written a general checklist for students in Grade 11. Besides keeping track of your academics and extracurricular activities at school, you are also responsible for the requirements of your application. In 11th grade, you should:
In the College Application Planner, you will find three different sheets: Master Plan, Overall Planning, and Timeline. Don’t worry, I will walk you through all three sheets to help you best plan the college journey. You can also customize the sheets to your liking!
Master Plan
In the Master Plan sheet, you should record all information/facts about the schools you want to apply to. We’ve included the most foundational and essential information from the school’s name, application system used, and a little description of the schools. This reflects primary data about the school itself, making it critical for any college comparison. Next, students can include details regarding specific admissions requirements and data to help them keep track of the requirements. There’s also an “Other” section that you can customize based on what’s important to you. On there, we’ve added Scholarship Notes and College Visits, but you should feel free to write down personal measures as well.
Overall Planning
The Overall Planning sheet gives you an overview of your goals for this admission cycle, what you want to do this year in terms of class, extracurricular activities, and things you do outside of school, and the actual outcome. The actual outcome can be anything from your reflection after a month of following the plan, or after the whole admission cycle. We also put in two different to-do lists for Grade 11 and Grade 12, so students can have a general idea of what tasks need to be done within each school year.
If the Overall Planning sheet gives you a big picture of what you should accomplish within the admission cycle, the Timeline sheet allows you to have more detailed monthly goals and plans. We recommend you reflect on your monthly goals to write down a clear plan to achieve those goals for the month.
Applying to college/university is a long-term process that requires planning from your freshman year. We hope that with this College Application Planner, you can easily plan your high school around college application and will be able to achieve the greatest admission results for this and the upcoming admission cycles!
Written by: Leila
Leila worked at Aralia Education Technology , an open online course provider for middle school and high school students. As a n international student in t he US for over 5 years, Leila is eager to share her experience s about studying in the U S and her unique insights to help future students succeed.