Kaplan Free Courses

Kaplan offers many free courses and services that every high school student should definitely be aware of. There are online video conferences with a Kaplan representative on a wide range of topics. Some of these topics include but are not limited to: PSAT Online Practice Test, SAT online practice test, Writing college essays, ACT prep, SAT Math review, SAT Writing review, and SAT Critical Reading review.

This Saturday @ 1:00 pm, Kaplan will offer a PSAT Online Practice Test. This is a live test with a timer. In addition to seeing the lay out of the test, you will also be able to see your score with Kaplan's Test Score Plus Report.

Be sure to take advantage of these tremendous educational oppurtunities. The best way to get good at something is to practice practice practice! You can never practice too much! Head on over to kaptest.com to sign up for a kaplan online event FREE!

Getting Involved In Your High School Community

It's important to be involved in and around your school. Colleges absolutely love an involved student. It shows leadership potential and defines your interests. The beginning of school is a great time to start thinking about how you can and want to get involved in your school community. Be looking for fliers and announcements about interest meetings for clubs and grab applications for things like student council and student ambassadors. NOW is the time to get involved. Focus on a particular interest of yours, weather it be a sport or passion for student government. By getting active early you can show colleges that you are the real deal and are a student worth having at their university.

How To Boost Your GPA

Study
Your Grade Point Average is a vital part of your college application. Admissions Offices will sometimes discard applications solely on GPA. While yes, it's not the only part of an application it is still very very important. So then, you can you boost your GPA? Well for starters there is the obvious, plain and simple answer...study. Studying is what it all about comes down to. Some people don't have to study as much as others, but if you don't know the material you're learning then you can be sure your GPA is going down the drain. Just by understanding the material you can increase your grades on tests and projects; thereby raising your GPA.



Take Honors and AP Classes
Honors and AP Classes are on different grading scales. Most Honors classes are run on a 5 point scale and AP classes on a 6 point scale. This can greatly influence your overall GPA, but watch out, it can also hurt your GPA if you don't put the right amount of effort into the class. If you're a hardworking student, who makes decent grades, then I highly suggest taking these classes. But if you take an Honors or AP class and get a C or D then you would have been better off getting a B in a CP (regular) class.

Getting Organized

 Organization... arguably the most important part of an academically successful high school career. If you're not already somewhat organized, it's time to get going. Staying organized allows you to work more efficiently and quickly access anything you might need.

One good way to stay organized is to have a different binder for every one of your classes. Label each binder accordingly, and if you wanna get fancy go ahead and color code them too. Having to carry around 4 or 6 binders (depending on if you're on a block schedule) can seem like a lot and unnecessary, but it may just be more helpful than you first suspect. Having separate binders allows you to ensure that all the papers and references you need for that class will be in that binder, and not in a miscellaneous folder or crammed in one huge binder. It's also a good idea to go ahead and buy a light/compact 3 ring hole puncher you can use to avoid having a bunch of papers stuffed on the inside pockets of your binders. Now that you've organized your binders by class, go ahead and start organizing each individual binder by separating it into sections to place similar items together. For this I would highly recommend insertable dividers. Now you can make sections to differentiate between homework, notes, classwork, tests, and extra paper.

Another great way to stay organized is to keep a calendar or planner. By having a calendar you have all the dates you need in one place and not scattered around your notes among various classes. Calendars can also help you to better plan and use your time wisely. Half the time people procrastinate is because they don't even know when an assignment is due and just assume they have time. A planner or calendar will help you to identify when it's appropriate to begin a project or studying. With this kind of organization you'll be able to plan ahead and know that you need to go ahead and get this knocked out because tomorrow you'll be swamped.

It's a good idea to go ahead and have a designated spot for your pins and pencils. There's nothing worse than getting to a class and realizing that you don't have anything to take notes with. So go ahead and either decide to have a spot in your backpack or buy an inexpensive pencil pouch. Be sure that at the end of every class you return the writing utensil you took out, this way you don't wind up constantly loosing your pens and pencils.

Last but not least, DATE YOUR NOTES! Dating your notes can help you to easily find the material your looking for to study with. A simple date in the upper right hand corner before you start class can go along way to keeping you organized.

The Birth of Altogether High School!

Welcome to our new blog! This blog is in direct partnership with allthingshighschool.weebly.com. The Purpose of this new blog is to provide you with informative articles frequently! All Things High School is a great source for a better insight to High School and tips to succeed. This blog however is all about sharing with you academic news, curriculum changes, social life do's and dont's, and other tools/information to better help you bring in the grades and the successful highschool relationships. Here, helpful articles will be posted just about daily for your viewing pleasures. On behalf of Altogether High School, I welcome you to our blog and hope you find what you're looking for! If your interested in a little bit more resources, be sure to check out allthingshighschool.weebly.com as well!