<p>Having learned before college and during freshman year that you must plan ahead, this thread is for the posting of advice on what college freshmen and their parents need to do before sophomore year in order to be prepared and not miss anything.</p>
<p>Ill start.</p>
<p>Some freshmen have signed leases on apartment for sophomore year before winter break of freshman year. Get going or the best complexes will fill up without you.</p>
<p>Keep applying for scholarships: There are still a ton of scholarships out there for current college students.</p>
<p>Dont forget to fill out the FAFSA every January.</p>
<p>Create a brag folder: Basically, a brag folder is a place where you store a copy of any scholarship application you fill out and any essay you write. You should also throw in any awards, certificated, military medals, and anything else that makes you look good. Hell, even a copy of your transcript is good.</p>
<p>Go to networking events: Its not what you know, its who you know.</p>
<p>(Yes, I stole some of this from published items.)</p>
<p>These are all good ideas. I’ll add a few more:</p>
<p>1) Visit your college placement office NOW. Find out what kind of resources they have available. Start thinking about what kinds of work you are interested in and what the path is to either learning more about it and/or getting there. Do not wait for winter break senior year.</p>
<p>2) If you don’t have a major decided on, this is the year to check out your options and make a choice. Plan ahead - repeat, visit the career center if you don’t know where you are headed. </p>
<p>3) If you haven’t developed any relationships with the faculty, make this one of your goals. This is especially true if you do know what you are planning to major in and/or have some clear career objectives.</p>
<p>You may not “need” to fill out FAFSA in January. For my two oldest it wasn’t required until spring as they packaged the soon-to-be freshman first. You can ask your particular college when their priority date will be for Sophs, Juniors and Seniors.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Don’t forget to renew/update any scholarships that require you to send in transcripts to continue the scholarship for the second year. </p></li>
<li><p>Update your resume to add to the brag folder.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I would also add - if you have decided on a major keep a handle on the required classes and look ahead to make sure you can fit them all into your upcoming schedule. Sometimes classes are only offered one semester in a year and you want to make sure you are not almost to graduation time and still have that one class that you haven’t taken in order to graduate.</p>
<p>^^ I’ll add on to lammb6’s recommendation and suggest that you use any college provided resources to plan out the rest of your semesters. You should also talk to your department’s advisors to see if there are classes you will need that are only offered on a rotational basis. You have to fit your requirements into the college’s schedule, and from DD’s experience there are usually several important classes that are only offered alternate semesters or even less frequently. If she hadn’t done this, her goal to finish in 4 years would not be possible.</p>
<p>As far as FAFSA being required later for upper classman this would not be true for funds that are first come first served. So SEOG funds are given out until exhausted and those funds vary from school to school and student to student. So filling out and submitting a FAFSA later in the year will decrease the amount given, if any is given at all.</p>
<p>Be prepared for the sophomore “the honeymoon is over” period. The newness has worn off and you may start to question the foundation of why you are where you are doing what you are doing. </p>
<p>Plan to branch out and join a new club, get a job or volunteer for a new cause to broaden your freshman query of friends.</p>
<p>Start now (over Christmas break) to look for some kind of internship or work experience in something you think you want to major in for the upcoming summer. Early bird gets the worm! My D1 and her boyfriend both graduated from college last spring into great jobs in the field and city they were interested in. Part of the reason for their employment success was the experience gained through early pursuit of internships or related summer jobs while they were in college.</p>
<p>In some tech fields internship applications may be due in the fall. Be prepared! Same goes for any interships that require security clearances like ones for the State Department.</p>
<p>Actually, this goes double or triple for students who have not decided on a major – such students must plan their sophomore year schedules so that they can take the courses to graduate on time for each of their possible majors.</p>
<p>Also, students at smaller colleges need to check whether some desired upper division courses in their majors are offered only once every two years. This may mean that the student has only one chance to take those courses in his/her junior and senior years.</p>