• Talk to your guidance counselor (or teachers, if you don't have access to a guidance counselor) about the following:
  
  
  • Reviewing the high school curriculum needed to satisfy the requirements of the colleges you are interested in attending
    
  • Finding out about AP and other honors-level courses:
    • What courses are available
    • Whether or not you are eligible for the classes that you want to take
    • How to enroll in them your junior year
  
  
• Update your file or start one if you haven't already. (See 9th Grade for a list of what it should contain.)
  
  
• Continue extracurricular activities, as admissions officers look at students' extracurricular activities when considering them for admission.
  
  
• Continue participation in academic enrichment programs, summer workshops, and camps with specialty focuses such as music, arts, science, etc.
  
  
• Take the ACT PLAN test in the fall, normally in October or November. This is a valuable test to help you prepare for the ACT which you can take during your junior year in April or June.
  
  
• Take the PSAT in October. The scores will not count for National Merit Scholar consideration in your sophomore year, but it is valuable practice for when you take the PSAT again in your junior year when the scores will count, as well as for the SAT I exam which you should also be taking in your junior year. You will receive your PSAT results in December.
  
  
• Start preparing for the SAT I.
  
  
• Register in April for the SAT II subject tests that you will be completing before June.
  
  
• Take the SAT II in June.