How to crush your sophomore year

By now, most of you are wrapping up your summer and you’ll be heading back to school soon for your sophomore year.

Most of you will probably be returning to the same school you went to last year so hopefully you’ll feel more confident about your “place” in the school.

Remember, with the beginning of a new year comes new expectations.

You’re no longer the wide-eyed, clueless freshman who doesn’t know anyone or anything. In fact, you’re a seasoned, salty, sophomore who knows just enough to be dangerous. This new place in the pecking order has its advantages and disadvantages.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

The advantage is that you know how the lockers work, where the gym is, and the lunchroom, and which areas of the school to avoid. The disadvantage is that you can very easily find yourself in no-man’s land.

What do I mean by that?

As a freshman, you have a “proverbial” target on your back. Everybody knows that you don’t know what you’re doing, that you’re trying to figure things out, and that you’re clueless. For those reasons, they cut you a lot of slack.

As a junior, you’re expected to have the system down pat and know exactly what to do and how to do it. Junior year, historically, is the toughest academic year in high school.  You’ve got your head down and you’re grinding.

But, what about this in-between year? Your “sophomore year”?

If the theme for freshman year is “clueless”, and the theme for junior year is “grinding”, what’s the theme for sophomore year?

That’s the problem. There is no theme.

Sophomore year, if you’re not careful, can become a “ghost year”.

Nobody’s really paying attention to you. You don’t have to be babied like the freshmen and you don’t have to be pitied like the juniors. So what are you?

Well, you are on your own. It’s up to you to navigate the waters.

You can look at this as a vulnerability (and be nervous) or as an opportunity (and be bold).

I hope you’ll choose the latter.

This is an opportunity for you to embrace sophomore year and set yourself up for a great junior year. But, you must be intentional about it. You can’t just assume things will work out.

To be frank, no one else really cares about the sophomore class.

Your school has other priorities and populations of students who need more attention. They need to make sure freshmen don’t get their lunch money stolen and that juniors don’t have mental health issues. You are pretty much left to your own devices.

The question is, what will you do with this new independence?

With this in mind, I think it’s worth reviewing the Big 3 pillars and what role they’ll play in your sophomore year. Remember, the Big 3 pillars specifically for service academies and ROTC programs are Academics, Athletics, and Leadership.

ATHLETICS

By now, you probably have a pretty good idea of where you stand in the pecking order of athletes in your school. You’ve had all last year to see what the athletic talent was like in your class and in the school writ large.

You have to make some decisions.

Are you playing high school sports? If so, how many? Are you good enough to play varsity as a sophomore? Do you need to drop one sport to be a legitimate contender in another sport?

If you’re trying to be a multi-sport athlete, will you be good enough to make multiple varsity teams this year or next? If not, maybe you should consider dropping all but your best sport?

These are the types of decisions that should be going through your mind as you ease into sophomore year and they will not always be easy or clear.

LEADERSHIP

As a sophomore, you may have leadership opportunities that you didn’t have last year as a freshman. Obviously, pay close attention to these as they are sometimes hard to come by.

You may not be in the running for a leadership position quite yet, but you may have to play a bigger role in a club so that next year you have a shot. These are important things to consider if your goal is to secure a few impressive leadership positions.

ACADEMICS

The first thing you should expect as a sophomore is that you will be working harder academically than you did in freshman year and you need to step up your game to meet those expectations.

Teachers will give you more responsibility and you will be held more accountable for your work.

This is not something to be nervous about. It’s something to get excited about. It’s time to take on that challenge.

Under the umbrella of academics are the 3 core academic metrics to keep an eye on.

1. GPA
2. Rigor of your classes
3. Standardized Test scores (SAT or ACT)

GPA

A GPA (aka grade point average) represents the average of all of your grades.

Traditionally, this has been on a 4.0 scale where an A is a 4.0, a B is a 3.0, a C is a 2.0 and so on. So, a 4.0 means a straight-A student. Obviously, the higher the GPA the better or the more As the better. This is unweighted, of course.

We won’t get into the nitty gritty details about what type of GPA you will need to get into the top service academies and ROTC programs, but suffice it to say that they will be expecting outstanding grades — definitely in the A and B category, but more so in the A category.

This isn’t meant to intimidate you or make you nervous, or make you feel pressured. It’s just to give you the information you need to be competitive next year. If that means you work extra hard this year to get As, then I’ve done my job — because grades matter.

Think about it this way: When you apply to college, you will do so in the beginning of senior year before you get any of your senior year grades. Thus, the only grades that matter for college admissions will be grades from freshman, sophomore, and junior year.

If you slack off freshman and sophomore years and don’t do well in your classes, you’ve just impacted 66% of your GPA (or ⅔ of your grades). That would be very hard to recover from.  

Bottom line: work hard this year and do everything you can to make good grades.

RIGOR

Will you take standard classes or advanced classes like Advanced Math, AP Biology, or Honors Chemistry?

The more selective colleges like to see that you’ve challenged yourself by taking the more difficult classes. They are interested to see how academically motivated you are. One way to prove that you have what it takes is to register for and do well in some advanced classes.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to take ALL advanced classes, especially if that means that you will not do well in those classes. You want to make sure that you challenge yourself as much as you can while also being successful in those classes (which normally means getting As).

Keep in mind, if your high school doesn’t offer a lot of advanced or weighted classes, that’s okay. Theoretically, it won’t be held against you. You will be evaluated compared to your peers in your school.

If your school offers a lot of advanced classes, and most of the high performers in your school take them, then colleges will wonder why you didn’t take them if given the chance.

By now, presumably, all of your sophomore year classes have already been selected so there’s not much you can do for this year; however, the importance of class selection is something that you should be aware of over the next two years.

STANDARDIZED TESTS

You’ve probably heard of the SAT and ACT.  These are the two standardized tests that you normally take in 11th and 12th grade. They are not something to worry about quite yet, but they’ll become important sooner than you think.

This year you may take the PSAT10, which is a “practice” SAT that sophomores can take, and then next year you’ll take another PSAT. These two tests will give you a good indication of how you might score on the official SAT.

The only thing I want you to know with respect to the SAT and ACT is that the work you do right now will impact how well you will eventually do on those tests. In other words, the more you work on math and reading now, the better you will do on these tests — especially with reading, because you can’t become a good reader overnight.

It takes years of regular reading to improve, and that process starts now.

I know. That’s a lot to digest. I wanted to lay it all out there because this is information that you must know about NOW before it’s too late.

Don’t let sophomore year become a “ghost year”.  Make it your best year ever.