Planning for college takes time and effort. I believe that no one should have to pay for college with loans and with proper planning, any student should be able to succeed in getting into college.

This is a timeline I've created that will give you an idea of what you should be doing as a high school student to prepare for college:

-1st yr: Take the hardest classes that you can handle.

-1st yr: Get that GPA as close to a 4.0 or better as possible. Open a savings acct.

-2nd yr: Begin major involvement in school activities, community service, etc.

-3rd yr: Begin visiting schools that peak your interest. Begin writing personal
essays and taking the ACT as often as you can.

-3rd yr: Start selecting mentors to write you letters of Recommendation.

-3rd yr: Start researching requirements for various scholarships and colleges.

-4th yr: Begin utilizing resources, securing financial support, and applying for
local scholarships.

Have you ever wondered why you ALWAYS seem to wait until the last minute to get something deathly important done? Or maybe why you seem to always end up writing that paper/project at 4:45am the night before you have to present it? If either one of these situations tends to be you, this entry has your name on it: You, the Procrastinator.

How do you beat the addiction to procrastination? I'm going to tell you how you lazy, last-minute, son-of-a-gun.

Visualize Failure

Great people tend to be EXTREMELY confident. Honestly, they can sometimes border know-it-all status. The best way to get yourself OFF your butt and do whatever it is you need to do is to visualize what will happen if you fail. If its a major project, you'll get an F on it and probably fail the class. If its something work related, you'll get written up or fired. Sometimes you have to threaten yourself by using failure as collateral into making you handle your business.

Have you ever wondered how certain people seem to have personal skills that allow them to maneuver through just about anything without breaking a sweat? Or better yet, known a classmate or coworker that could seemingly blow up the office/classroom, commit a double murder and slap an old lady-yet still receive a promotion on the job or an A+ in the class?
These people hold a certain charisma and state of mind that gets them through doors and I’m going to show you how to do the same thing!

1. Cultivate Relationships with Authority.

It's your senior year; the parties, proms, and status makes this part of your life absolutely amazing! You have that inner excitement that only a senior in high school preparing to hopefully get into college has. Questions you might have may vary from, "Am I going to get into my dream school?", to "How am I going to pay for this?"-No worries, I'll help you get through this excitingly frightening period of your life.

How can I do it? Well, for starters I did it less than 4 years ago, and my situation was much tougher. I was a junior in high school and accumulated more credits than the average student. Because of this, I was pushed into my senior year after my first 3 months of my junior year. Basically, my junior and senior year was combined. I had NOT:

Taken the ACT
Taken the SAT
Applied for College
Even THOUGHT about College
Saved any money
Earned any scholarships
Done anything to prepare for this time in my life