Junior year has long been recognized as an incredibly important year for any student as it is the year that most colleges are looking at. Not only are juniors expected to keep up with classes rigorously, but they are also expected to have extracurricular activities in and outside of school to have the material for college applications (and also because they enjoy the extracurricular, hopefully). With this in mind, many of our juniors here at MHSHS are familiar with caffeine and long nights, coming home exhausted and having to join a zoom meeting for a program outside of school, going to your extracurriculars on breaks, and generally spending a lot of your ‘free time’ working. However, it is possible to keep up with this tumultuous year but still have a social life, and even have some fun high school experiences as students at our school have shown. Nonetheless, I have interviewed some of our junior student body to give you sophomores some more specific insight, lucky you. :) 
   As I’m sure current sophomores know, academics at MHSHS are taken seriously, however, what most juniors have reported is that it all comes down to time management. 86 percent of high school students are reported to ‘procrastinate on assignments”, according to education company Magoosh and I don’t think our school is an exemption to this statistic, with some of the most prominent advice when interviewed being an enthusiastic “LEARN HOW TO MANAGE YOUR TIME”. This is the year that colleges start to look at your grades; late assignments will impact your average once they add up, and by then it’s too late to do much about it. Extra credit can only help so much and some teachers may not even give opportunities for it if you have shown a lack of interest as a student by handing in assignments late. There are many free resources to help in managing one's time, Pomodoro timers being a prominent and easy-to-use example. However, support from friends is also greatly encouraged. For instance, homework sessions after school or in the library are effective if you know that you will not be able to focus at home until it’s late at night,  and are great ways to focus if the problem is that you can’t motivate yourself to do so.
   Furthermore, when it comes to time management it is especially important when taking into consideration that the classes one is taking in junior year are more rigorous as juniors have to take AP Language and AP US History as a requirement, with AP Biology being optional but a prominent choice if you want to go into the medical field. Unfortunately, juniors are not able to advise on the mathematics classes as many sophomores will be taking Pre-Calc instead of Algebra 2 next year. However, advice for AP US History remains the same: don’t procrastinate and do your LGTs every day, as once you fall behind it is hard to catch up. Although it may be easy to see APUSH as another one of your US History classes, like the ones you had before high school, the material goes much more in-depth, taking into account politics; instead of just memorizing dates students are expected to make nuanced connections to have a good understanding and score on the APUSH test in May. Additionally, although AP Language may seem a little daunting for students who don’t do spectacularly in normal English classes, many juniors find it to be reasonable in terms of both workload and difficulty, with not a lot of homework but a need to use in-class time appropriately for their assignments. For AP Biology however, there is a lot of work to be done on the student’s part, not because the teacher is doing something wrong, but simply because Biology in general is a class that requires a lot of self-studying and memorization. When signing up for AP Bio, take into consideration that you will most likely spend a lot of time studying and that the mitochondria are no longer defined as the powerhouse of the cell but instead something much more, this is an AP class after all. However, it’s not too bad, Mr. Eisenstadt is known for devoting much of his time to helping his students, so if you make an effort you should be able to pass the class (maybe even with flying colors!).
   We are still not over! Juniors have to take the SAT soon(March 22nd, good luck to my fellow peers), and you sophomores will most likely take the PSAT around this time as well. Thus, some of the most important advice that a lot of juniors said was to ‘take SAT prep seriously, don’t use it as nap time”- very important for a college-focused high school like ours. Although many colleges say they are test-optional, it is important to still take the test seriously as it can open doors to scholarships or be another highlight on your application. Many juniors recommend starting SAT prep very early, as in, right now or during your summer vacation. Do not delay! Not only will you be busy with normal schoolwork during junior year, but you will also have extracurricular activities, and will be in the process of studying for those AP tests you’ve signed up for. There is very little time that you will want to spend looking at yet another standardized test, so take advantage of the summer when you have more free time and are unbound by other responsibilities that come during the school year. 
   Not everything is academic though, and colleges want to see some of your passions and hobbies (extracurriculars) throughout junior year. I am unqualified to talk about specifically what colleges are looking for when seeing your extracurriculars so I’ll leave that for another day, however, there is still some advice to be said here. Mainly: “just go for it”. If there’s a club or a sport you think you wouldn’t be good at but still have some interest in, try it out. Who knows? Maybe you’re a natural at it? Even if you’re not, there’s no harm in trying, we’re still in high school after all. 
   Well, that’s it, folks! I know that’s a long read so here’s the TL;DR: manage your time, don’t procrastinate, be ready for the rigor of classes, TAKE SAT PREP SERIOUSLY and start prepping early, and finally don’t be afraid to try different things for extracurriculars!

Good luck,
Frida Rivera Animas