Getting Ready for High School: Important Info to Help With Success

My book HOW TO SUCCEED IN HIGH SCHOOL AND PREP FOR COLLEGE has recently been getting several repins on Pinterest (which I very much appreciate). Hopefully this will lead to more high school students — or their parents — reading the book and, in many cases, saving themselves a heap of problems.

I wrote this book when I worked with high school seniors applying to colleges and realized, especially based on the mistakes made with my own two children, that optimizing college applications begins in the summer BEFORE entering 9th grade.

Why is it so important to start planning for applying to college before entering 9th grade?

Because the requirements for high school graduation compared to the requirements for applying to certain colleges may not be the same.

Here is just one example that I explain in HOW TO SUCCEED IN HIGH SCHOOL:

Both my daughters insisted on pushing themselves ahead in 9th grade math, erroneously assuming that colleges cared more about the level of math achievement and assured that their two different high schools only required three rather than four years of math.

But as my daughters approached senior year of high school and started looking at college applications, it turned out that — for the colleges they wanted to apply to — the level of math achievement was not important. What was required: four years of high school math, period.

In the cases of my daughters, one daughter took a very easy fourth-year math course, the only course at her high school she was eligible to take. At a different high school, the other daughter had to take AP Calculus, something definitely above her math ability, as the only course she was eligible to take. Needless to say, this was a very painful experience for her. And her high school insisted she actually pay for and take the AP Calculus exam — a total waste of time and money.

(The better choice would have been not to push themselves ahead in 9th grade math. They should have started at the regular 9th grade level and, by senior year, been able to take a fourth-year math course that was neither a waste of time because it was too easy or too hard for their math abilities.)

It is to prevent painful or unanticipated experiences such as these that I recommend students entering 9th grade read HOW TO SUCCEED IN HIGH SCHOOL (in paperback and Kindle ebook or free with a Kindle Unlimited subscription). And for students already in high school, the book has a great deal of other valuable information, including for teens who would be the first in their families to attend college.

As I often say, I only wish I had this book when my daughters were entering high school. They could have had a much less stressful high school and college application experience. Click here to check out the book now on Amazon.

P.S. HOW TO SUCCEED IN HIGH SCHOOL is the first of a three-book series for teens and young adults. Read more about the books at www.howtosucceedebooks.com and my offer to speak pro bono via Skype to high schools where an entire class buys the paperback or ebook of HOW TO SUCCEED IN HIGH SCHOOL.

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks, including HOW TO SUCCEED IN HIGH SCHOOL AND PREP FOR COLLEGE and the romantic suspense spy thriller CIA FALL GUY, as well as newly written books not yet published. She can be reached at pzmiller@gmail.com