Junior year is a crucial time for students to begin preparing themselves for college, although many don’t know where to begin.

While some students have the guidance of older siblings to help them know what to do as college approaches, others do not.

School counselors have many jobs and many student needs to attend to, but I believe that a stronger focus should be placed on students near the end of their junior year.

ACT, SAT, college applications: All of these should be prevalent on the mind of every junior. However, this is a hard thing to do without guidance.

Right now, the counselors are trying to fit everyone into their schedule before college applications are due, and that’s a lot of stress on them and a lot of stress on students who aren’t getting the help or attention that they need.

We have a counselor dedicated to helping freshmen, why not a counselor dedicated to end-of-year juniors and beginning-of-year seniors?

This would give the other counselors time to focus on their other tasks while the junior/senior counselor zeroed in on students preparing for college.

I just started my senior year, and I can honestly say that I am lost when dealing with college applications.

I know that counselors are currently working with seniors to try and prepare them, but I believe that if this process had been started near the end of last year, this operation would be going much more smoothly.