Open every piece of snail mail you get from the college, and read all of it. You’re probably used to getting all kinds of mail from all kinds of colleges, but once you’ve decided on a college, anything and everything they send you needs to be read. Just ask the student who opened the letter congratulating him for being admitted. He didn’t read the next page, which told him he had a $42,000 scholarship.
Continue to check your email account. Email may be almost as old school as snail mail, but it’s still how many colleges communicate with students—especially if they need something in a hurry. The only way you find out what they need is to check email about three times a week in the summer. And make sure to check your junk email folder; some colleges send emails to thousands of students, and your email account may think it’s spam. It isn’t.
Look for the checklist. Most colleges send you a checklist with everything you’ll need to do over the summer, and when you need to do it. This checklist may come by snail mail, or as a link in an email, or maybe as a text. Print it out, and put it on your refrigerator at home; that way, your parents can help you keep track of what to do as well. If your college doesn’t give a checklist, there are others out there, such as this one from College Board.
