High school planning
Nobody tells freshmen
how any of this works.
A separate free program, mostly for freshmen and sophomores. Not tutoring, and not a counseling service. A straight conversation with students who recently went through the same courses, the same testing calendar, and the same applications.
Ask us a questionThe problem with "work hard and get involved"
It is true and it is useless. It does not tell a ninth grader which math track to be on, or why that choice is hard to undo by junior year. It does not tell them that colleges read the rigor of a schedule, not just the grades in it. It does not tell them when to sit for the SAT or ACT, or that a short list of things done seriously beats a long list of clubs joined.
Most students figure this out around junior year, which is late. The ones who figure it out freshman year usually have a parent or an older sibling who went through it. That is the gap this is meant to close.
What we can actually help with
Concrete questions get concrete answers.
Course planning
Which classes to take and in what order, how math and science tracks work, when honors or AP is worth it, and what a schedule looks like across four years instead of one.
Testing
SAT versus ACT, when to take a first one, how many times to sit, and how much it really matters relative to everything else.
Activities
How to pick a few things and go deep, what starting something of your own actually takes, and why a long list of memberships reads as thin.
The application itself
What goes where, what the timeline looks like senior fall, and which parts you can get ahead of now.
What this is not
We are high school students, not counselors, and this is not a paid admissions consulting service. Nobody here can promise you an outcome, and you should be skeptical of anyone who does. If we do not know something, we say so and point you to your school counselor.
What we can offer is recent, specific, and honest: what we did, what worked, what we would do differently, and what nobody told us in ninth grade.
It is free, the same as the tutoring.
Ask us
This one runs over email rather than a form, so we can answer the question you actually have.
Send us a note
Include your grade level and what you are trying to figure out. Parents are welcome to write in too. We answer within a few days.
Email contact@thetutorium.org