Starting Junior Year Strong: College Application Essentials for Parents

Junior Year Choices Shape College Applications. Is Your Teen on Track?

Junior year is the foundation of a strong application. From rigorous courses and meaningful activities to testing decisions, recommendation letters, and early college research, this is the year it all comes together. Admissions officers pay close attention to a student’s junior year, so having a strong strategy is key.

Our speakers, Renee Roush (former Associate Director of Admissions at The George Washington University) and Kaila Brown (former Vanderbilt Assistant Director of Admissions), have reviewed 1000s of college applications.

Join to discover:

How colleges evaluate junior year courses, grades, and activities
What testing plans (PSAT, SAT, ACT, AP) support strong applications and how to decide now
How to set the stage for essays and letters of recommendation this year
Smart strategies to balance preparation without adding extra stress

College applications don’t begin senior year. The preparation starts now! Register today and set your teen up for success.

Kaila Brown

Former Vanderbilt Assistant Director of Undergraduate Admissions

Kaila’s seven years of college admissions experience include time spent on both sides of the desk—as both an admissions officer and a school counselor. After earning a master’s in higher education from the University of Pennsylvania, Kaila returned to her alma mater, Vanderbilt University, where she spent the next five years as an Assistant Director of Admissions, evaluating applications. She then accepted a post at Marist School in Atlanta as the Associate Director of College Counseling, assuming responsibility for college admissions support for an annual caseload of over 100 students whose college interests ranged from the most selective schools in the country, to Division 1 athletics, from competitive engineering programs to theatrical arts. Finally, she rounded out her experience with a successful two-year stint in the business world as a Customer Success Manager for a company that provides a college admissions guidance management system for high schools (the only counselor at Collegewise to have held such a post).

Renee Roush

Former The George Washington University Associate Director of Admissions

Renee Roush’s long-standing career in admissions at the University of Delaware, and then headed to DC to serve as the Associate Director of Student Activities, Involvement, & First Year Programs at The George Washington University. After testing the waters outside of education for a bit- and finding it was nowhere near as awesome- Renee returned to GWU as Associate Director of Admissions, where she also served as an adjunct faculty member in Outdoor and Environmental Education. After GW, she was an application reader for Columbia University for several years, before hopping to “the other side of the desk” as the Freshman Dean and College Counselor at Highland School in Warrenton, VA.