Pre-study for your hardest class over the summer

I know for the last couple of weeks, I’ve been recommending that you use this summer to prepare for the SAT or ACT.

Well, I’m not going to stop there.

I also believe that this summer is a great opportunity to get ahead on some of next year’s classes — especially the tough ones.

PRE-STUDY

Junior year will be the most challenging year for you academically — not only because you will have the hardest classes, but for other reasons as well:

1.  Expectations. You’ve had two years to get the hang of things. No more excuses. Now is the time to perform.
2.  Letters of Recommendation. You need to be especially strong in your English and Math classes this year because you will be asking those teachers for letters of recommendation in the spring.
3.  Leadership. You will likely have a leadership position (or 2 or 3), which will take up a lot of time and energy.
4.  Physical demands. If you’re an athlete, you will have a lot of physical demands on you.
5.  Standardized Tests. You may need to take a few SAT and ACT tests early in the year.
6.  AP Exams. You may have to take several AP exams in the spring.

As you can see, there are a lot of competing priorities which will chip away at the time you have to focus on your main classes.

Remember, when it comes to college admissions, your junior year grades are the most important grades of all.

How do you strike a balance between ensuring that you get great grades in your toughest classes while also performing athletically, as a leader, and on standardized tests?

The answer: early preparation.

That’s the name of the game and also ServeWell Academy’s mission — which is to give you the insider tips on how to manage these challenges ahead of time, so you don’t get anxious and freak out during the school year.

FRONT LOAD YOUR SUCCESS

Take a look at the classes on your schedule for next year and determine which ones are the hardest or the ones that you are least looking forward to.

Those are the ones I want you to pre-study for.

I don’t expect you to teach yourself all of Physics or Chemistry from scratch, but I do think you are capable of familiarizing yourself with the material.

I want you to review the major topics, themes, images, terminology, and vocabulary, so that when you show up to class in August or September, it’s not the first you’ve ever seen any of the information.

Again, I don’t expect you to take a full online or community college class on these subjects (though I do know students who do this), but I would like you to build a working knowledge of the curriculum.

Thankfully, it’s very easy to do this with the help of our old friend, Khan Academy.

Khan Academy has hundreds of modules that walk you through each and every topic and give great lessons with explainer videos and practice problems - particularly in the math and sciences fields.

If you are worried about pre-calculus, AP Calc, AP Physics, or Chemistry, I strongly recommend that you get together with Khan Academy this summer and begin to chip away at some of these lessons.

When I say “familiarize yourself”, that could mean watching one 5-10 minute video per day M-F.

Make it part of your daily summer routine.

I’m not suggesting that you sit for hours poring over textbooks or reading esoteric manuals.

As I’m sure you know by now, Khan Academy is extremely user-friendly, accessible, high-quality, and delivers content in small chunks.

Let me paint the picture of how happy you will be if you do this.

THE PAYOFF

You’re going to show up to your AP Physics class, and when the teacher starts to review the syllabus and mentions things like kinematics, harmonic motion and angular momentum — instead of turning white as a ghost like some of your friends (who are intimidated), a smile will come across your face, because you will be familiar with many (if not all) of these topics.

That will give you a lot of confidence.

Will you know everything already? No, of course not.

But, having already learned the basics of some of the theories and concepts, you will be light years ahead of everyone else.

Ideally, this will lighten the load in that particular class because you’ve prepared ahead of time. It will allow you to dedicate more mental energy to other activities that might need it.

All of my sons followed this advice for math prior to 9th-grade. They took an accelerated math course during the summer after 8th-grade, which made 9th-grade math a breeze. That gave them confidence and a leg up on their peers. 

In case you didn’t know, even though Khan Academy tends to focus heavily on math and science content, it also has Arts & Humanities modules for classes like History, Government, and economics.

Start with the classes you think you’ll need the most help with, and get a head-start.