Where do I actually start with thinking about college?

College Vine has many great resources for helping students in high school through the college application process. You can watch their webinars, read their blogs, and use the other software that they provide. However, if you want to find a college with a Legal Practices-related major, you will probably just have to look for schools on Google. I would then go to BigFuture (software by CollegeBoard) or Cappex to learn more about the school and how well the schools fit your personality and tastes. I will admit, I am only a sophomore right now, but since I'm in a pretty competitive district, my classmates and I have been taught college application stuff since we started high school, at least to some extent. But because of this, I may miss some stuff. As a result, please explore Google and other college-related websites to learn more about the process. In addition, you can contact your school counselor and they should be able to help. Okay, let's see what I can remember (hopefully, other people will be able to supplement my points, since they will probably be out of order.)

1. Go to CommonApp to fill out the college application essay. Most of the colleges in the US accept their essay applications through CommonApp, if I am correct.

2. Go to the websites of the colleges that you plan to apply to (for example, University of Southern California, https://www.usc.edu/). They usually have a section at the top that says admissions or apply and those should be helpful since each college application process is different, depending on the school. You'll probably find the materials that you need or forms that you need to fill out here.

3. Apply for as many scholarships as you can, even the minor ones. If you apply to enough, the money really starts to pile up. You can usually find some scholarships just by looking up "college scholarships" in Google, but also take a look at Cappex and Fastweb to find additional ones. This is all because you really do not want student debt since it is extremely dangerous in the future. You want to reduce that debt as much as possible. In addition, you can apply for financial aid directly from the school which you can also find information for it on the school's website. Also, find out what FAFSA is. I think it's for financial aid, which would be helpful.

4. Get recommendation letters from teacher, advisors, counselors, and other people, except family and friends, that know you well for your academics or personality, or passions. Colleges are beginning to look at these more heavily.

I'm definitely missing something, so I again apologize for that. However, remember that you are still a junior and still have some time to gather information and decide what you want to do. However, DO NOT procrastinate on the application process, especially the essays since those take forever to write and proofread and revise. Colleges have very strict deadlines for their applications so you really need to make sure that everything is ready to go before you send them out.

Here are some extra things that you can look at if you are still confused:

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/college-application-process

https://thebestschools.org/resources/how-to-apply-for-college/

https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/get-in/applying-101/college-applications-how-to-begin-admissions