Choose high school classes wisely

Colleges care about which courses you're taking in high school. The courses you take in high school show colleges what kind of goals you set for yourself. Are you signing up for advanced classes, honors sections, or accelerated sequences? Are you choosing electives that really stretch your mind and help you develop new abilities? Or are you doing just enough to get by?

Colleges will be more impressed by respectable grades in challenging courses than by outstanding grades in easy ones.

It’s vitally important your high school course selections match what most colleges expect you to know. For example, many colleges require two to four years of foreign language study. Of course, each college and university may have different high school course requirements. Be sure to check with the colleges you're interested in to see what they recommend or require.