Juniors, as the year goes on I have one piece of advice: start your college search now.

Starting this year will take so much pressure off of you later down the line. Junior year is always said to be the hardest year and that is generally true. However, the beginning of senior year is just as stressful (if not more) as you prepare to apply for colleges. To prevent this, there are many things you can do this year to make your senior year application process significantly less stressful.

One of the easiest things you can do that will take the stress off this year is to figure out which teachers you want to write your letters of recommendation. You are required to have at least one or two letters of recommendation to apply for most colleges. Most people ask their preferred teachers to write their letters of recommendation in senior year. This leads to teachers being swamped with letters to write for several people on top of their usual beginning of the year work.

Asking teachers near the end of this year can allow them much more time to write out a more personalized letter. Asking them at the beginning of the year is fine, but if a popular teacher has 50 letters to write for every different senior, it could take them a while to get the letter back to you. This can be a problem if you are applying for high paying scholarships who usually have very early deadlines.

Doing this will put you ahead of other of other students and keep some of the stress off of you in the long run.