After 16+ years in college planning and analyzing data from students across multiple admission cycles, the answer is clear: the optimal time to start is the summer between 8th and 9th grade. Not 5th grade, which is too early. Not junior year, which puts you in a hole. Students who start in this sweet spot have the highest dream school admission rates, receive the most scholarships, and report the least stressful college planning journeys.
“When should we start?” It’s probably the single most common question I’ve had in my 16+ years of being in this college planning world. And for a long time, I gave the answer I thought was right based on experience. But two admission cycles ago, after a record-breaking year of Ivy League and Ivy-adjacent acceptances, I decided to actually look at the data. What I found confirmed everything I suspected, and gave me the confidence to tell you exactly when to begin.
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The data doesn’t lie: there’s a sweet spot
A little context. Two admission cycles ago, we had a record-breaking year at CollegeConsulting.us. Many Ivy League acceptances. Many Ivy-adjacent acceptances. Our students did really well. So I said, I’m going to use this admission cycle to retroactively look at when each of these seniors joined our program.
How I analyzed the data
I went back through every single one of our students and asked: when did they start? This student got into their dream school. Great. When did they start working with us? This student got into their second choice school. When did they start? This student got a full ride scholarship. When did they start? This student got a 50% scholarship. When did they start?
This was a multi-day project. It took forever, especially because I was having to go back and really look at the data from two, three, four years prior when students exactly joined. But I did it, and it was really cool to see.
The clear winner
The data was unbelievably clear. The sweet spot to start college planning is the summer between 8th and 9th grade.
There it is. If you want, you can turn off the rest of this post and go initiate your own college planning journey for your about-to-be high schooler. The summer between 8th and 9th grade is the ideal time to start.
There is such a thing as too early
If you go on college admissions blogs and some of the more intense insights out there, you can see everything from professionals in the industry recommending you should start college planning in fifth grade or sixth grade.
I disagree.
Kids need to be kids
We preach at CollegeConsulting.us that kids are only kids once. They need to have a life. There is a sweet spot where you should start college planning, and then there is too early.
If you’re starting to think about college planning in fifth grade or sixth grade, it is too early in my opinion. Kids need to have a life. Kids need to enjoy themselves. Kids need to live.
Permission to wait
So if you have a seventh grader or below, let them be a child. I’m a huge proponent of: when it’s time, go all in. Before it’s time, embrace whatever else you’re doing.
If your child is in sixth grade going into seventh grade, or seventh grade going into eighth grade, I’m giving you permission to let your kid be a kid for another year or two. You don’t have to think about college yet. Let them truly enjoy. Let them embrace their childhood.
Now, if you’re a parent who really wants to be on the early side, then eighth grade is when I’ll allow you to start. Somewhere between seventh and eighth grade. But please, not earlier than that.
There is definitely such a thing as too late
On the flip side, if you start thinking about college planning in the fall of 12th grade, that is too late today. It really is. You are going to put yourself in a serious hole when it comes to college admissions.
The 12-month scramble
Where the college planning journey gets ultra stressful is when you don’t have enough time. All of a sudden you’re trying to jam-pack everything into a 12-month process. You’re taking SATs. You’re taking ACTs. You’re trying to pack your academic schedule. You’re trying to go on college trips. You’re trying to visit schools. You’re trying to figure out your list. You’re trying to figure out your early decision school.
Then all of a sudden you realize: I thought I had until January of senior year, but I really only have until November because I want to apply early decision to give myself the best chance. And those 12 months become nine months.
It gets stressful.
The dinner table conversations
Nearly every day we hear from mothers who say, “All I want is to stop having dinner table conversations about college planning.”
Those dinner table conversations happen because families know, maybe subconsciously, that they’re running short on time. And when you make the process simply a parallel process with high school, meaning you’re starting high school and we’re going to stress-free with a long-term four-year plan that parallels high school, just consistently upping your college game, it’s amazing how much easier it is.
Why starting early matters: three reasons backed by data
Let me give you the three reasons why, after looking at our internal data, I am so certain that the summer between 8th and 9th grade is the best time to start.
Reason one: best chance at your dream school
If you start early, you are giving your child the best chance of admission at their dream school. Now, if your child is in the summer between 8th and 9th grade, here’s the thing: they probably don’t know what their dream school is yet.
This is where college planning gets tricky. Families wait until their child has that “I’ve decided on my dream school” moment, and then they say, “Okay, now that you’ve decided, let’s figure out how to get you in.”
That is not the best way to go about it.
The students who say, “I don’t know what my dream school is, and yet I’m going to build a college-ready profile so that when the time comes in two, three, four years, whatever that dream school is, I will be in the best position for success,” those are the students who win.
They have a four-year foundational profile that they’ve built. They’re not thinking about “I want to get into Harvard.” They’re thinking about how do I build myself? How do I build my character? How do I build my self-discipline? How do I build my study habits?
Then eventually they say, “You know what, maybe come junior year, Harvard’s my target.” Well, congrats, because for the last two years you’ve been building a profile that was Harvard-ready. You just didn’t know it was Harvard-ready.
Reason two: you’re going to save a lot of money
As a parent of a high schooler, if you start the college planning process early, you are simply going to save a lot of money. Take a look at the scholarship data.
It was very clear: our students who worked for four years in our program had significantly more scholarship offers come 12th grade than the students who joined in 11th grade.
Here’s why this makes sense. The best college-ready profiles, the most impressive profiles, the ones where the top admissions rooms in the country say, “We want to admit this student,” those are the exact same profiles where they say, “We want to admit this student with merit scholarships to incentivize them to come.”
Those are the same profiles.
Emily is a perfect example. She worked with us for over two years and got a handwritten note from Notre Dame begging her to attend. That’s what happens when you put in multiple years of work. You build a college-ready profile, and Notre Dame says, “Please come.” They can say it with a handwritten note like they did for Emily, or they can say it by giving scholarship money in their package as a bonus incentive.
Reason three: it is way more fun
To me, this is the most important reason. For 16+ years, I’ve been preaching that the college planning journey can be ultra successful and ultra fun at the same time.
Some other gurus out there might say, “No, that’s impossible. You’ve got to grind teenagers down. They better not be sleeping more than six hours a night. They better be taking 15 AP classes.”
I just have a different approach.
This is no different than working on any goal in life. When students first learn in ninth grade that they’ve got an essay due, that first time they stay up blurry-eyed until 2 a.m. because they didn’t work on the essay until the night before, you only do that so many times until you realize: it takes a little more forethought, a little more planning, a little more maturity. But if I work on this essay for just an hour a day for a week before it’s due instead of seven hours the night before, not only is it way less stressful and way more fun, but I actually get a better grade on the paper.
College planning is the same thing.
The sibling test: proof from real families
Not only was the data profound to see, but it aligned with all my anecdotal examples of just seeing parent after parent who enrolled sibling number two, sibling number three, and yes, even sibling number four.
The pattern I see over and over
We have a lot of families who join us with their first child. Because they haven’t been thinking about college planning, let’s say they join back half of sophomore year. We say, “Hey, we have a different approach here. We’re not just a band-aid approach. We’re not just ‘work on your essays 12th grade.’ We’re a long-term approach, and you’re joining at the end of 10th grade. So you are behind, but we will get you caught up.”
Then we get them caught up. The first child does exceptionally well.
And I mean right now I’m thinking of eight, nine, ten different families who then come back with child number two. Their number one thing? They come back the summer between 8th and 9th grade and they say, “Your program was exceptional for my high school sophomore. We’ve learned one thing: we want to get started now. We want to get started early.”
And we say yes. Because the family, having gone through it with their first child, realizes that it’s not a one-year process. It’s not a two-year process if you want to do it right.
Parent after parent who enrolled sibling number two, sibling number three said, “Oh yeah, we’re not enrolling in 10th grade or 11th grade this time. We’re enrolling as soon as you accept us.”
That was really cool to see. It’s been cool to see for many, many years.
Three actionable steps you can take today
If you’re watching this and you have a child who is eighth going into ninth grade and it’s the summer, you can say, “Wow, I now have permission to start. I’ve been told this is the ideal time, but how do I start? How do I tell my eighth-into-ninth grader that, hey, you haven’t stepped foot in high school, but let’s start thinking about college?”
I get that. That can be daunting. So I’m going to give you three concrete steps to help initiate that process.
Step one: visit a handful of nearby campuses
Very fun, very easy when you have four years. Just start visiting a handful of nearby campuses. Have no goal, have no agenda, just start visiting.
What you’re trying to mix and match is: big school versus small school, campus versus no campus, city versus country. The reason this is so helpful is if you have an eighth or ninth grader, you don’t have to go in with this agenda of “is this my school and am I going to apply?” You don’t have to get nervous and stressed.
I know what those visits are like. I did them in 11th grade and 12th grade. They were nerve-wracking trips because I was like, I have one chance to learn everything about this school to decide if I’m going to apply or if it’s my top choice.
The beauty about doing it in 8th or 9th grade is you can say, “We’re just here to explore.” And as a parent, that should be so much more fun. It’s like the toe in the door to teaching your kid that college planning can be enjoyable if we don’t have to rush through it.
One tip: always eat in the dining hall. You will learn more from just sitting in a dining hall and eating there and watching students, or better yet, having your high schooler ask a student at a table, “Hey, what grade are you in? Tell me how you like it here.” You will learn more during that five-minute conversation than you did the whole campus tour.
Step two: build foundational study habits
Many do not think this is college planning, but it is. This is where we take a different approach. We have a foundational approach.
Have your child actually deeply come up with study habits and in-classroom processes that they’re happy with, they’re proud of, and that deliver results.
The single most important factor in all of college admissions is high school grades. And unless I am a horrible predictor, that will never change. It will always be number one.
What we see often is when families start thinking about college in 11th grade, they come to us and say, “Here’s my kid’s profile from 9th and 10th grade.” And the amount of times I’ve looked at an 11th grader who’s grown up and matured and he’s like, “Yeah, I’m really bummed about my freshman year science class. I just didn’t think it would be so important and now I’m in 11th grade and I get it.”
It’s tough because there’s nothing we can do to change that grade. But there is something you can do if you’re a parent of an eighth-to-ninth grader. Go take a look at my video, How to Get Straight A’s in Every Class and Sleep Eight Hours a Night. If your child simply implements those tactics, learns them, embraces them in 9th grade, they are going to be head and shoulders above their competition.
If your student feels like there aren’t enough hours in the day to build good habits, start with my free High School Time Audit. Most students find 5+ hours per week they didn’t know they had.
Step three: create a standardized testing game plan
This doesn’t mean you need to take your standardized test the summer between 8th and 9th grade. But start working on a game plan. Start talking to your child about it. Maybe take a practice ACT and a practice SAT to figure out which one your child generally performs better on and likes better.
So now all of a sudden you’re just halfway through 9th grade and you know: I’m taking the ACT. That’s huge. Most students don’t figure that out until the back half of 11th grade or even into 12th.
Here’s the thing about standardized testing: it’s the second most important characteristic in all of college admissions, but it has the highest leverage. The input-to-output ratio is incredibly skewed. For the second most important characteristic behind high school grades, it has the lowest amount of input for that high output.
By the way, as an aside, we have score choice in this country. If you decide you want to take the ACT, you could just take the ACT twice a year for four years. That’s eight tests, and you just submit your best score. If you did that alone, you’re going to absolutely crush your ACT or SAT because you’ve got eight real tests, and if you don’t like a score, you don’t have to submit it.
Think about how stress-free that is: knowing you have four years to get a killer standardized test score.
The bottom line: you have permission to start
If you’re a parent of a seventh grader or below, let them be a child. I’m giving you permission. Enjoy these years.
If your child is in the summer between 8th and 9th grade, congratulations. You are at the perfect time to begin the college planning process in a super fun, super relaxed manner. This is the sweet spot the data confirms.
If you’re watching this and you have a 9th-to-10th grader, a 10th-to-11th grader, even an 11th-to-12th grader, start today. It’s never too late. Every year we have last-minute juniors who come into our program, go all in, and reach their dream schools.
The data is clear. The families who’ve been through it with multiple children confirm it. The sweet spot exists, and now you know exactly what it is.
Ready to take the next step?
If you’re interested in talking about your personal situation, your child’s personal situation, you can book a 100% free college planning strategy session with our team. We’ll map out exactly where your student stands and what makes sense for your family.
And if your student isn’t sure what makes them unique or what they’re genuinely interested in, start with my free Saturday Morning Test. It’s a simple exercise that helps students discover their authentic interests, the same exercise I use with every new family in our program. It’s especially powerful when you have four years to actually explore what you discover.
Frequently asked questions about when to start college planning
What if my child is already in 10th or 11th grade? Is it harder? Yes. Does the data show it’s less successful? Absolutely. But every single year we have 11th graders who reach their top choice dream schools and say, “I went all in for basically a 12-month sprint.” It’s possible. Not easy, but possible. The best day to start is today.
My child doesn’t know what they want to study yet. Should we still start? Absolutely. The students who build the best profiles are the ones who aren’t thinking about the end result. They’re thinking about building themselves, their character, their study habits. When they eventually decide on a dream school, they’re already prepared.
Won’t starting in 8th grade stress out my kid? Not if you do it right. When you have four years, there’s no pressure. Visiting campuses becomes fun exploration, not high-stakes evaluation. Building study habits becomes foundation-laying, not crisis management.
How is this different from helicopter parenting? There’s a big difference between guiding and controlling. Starting early means you can take a relaxed, exploratory approach instead of a frantic, last-minute scramble. It’s actually less intensive because you have time on your side.
What if we can only start in spring of freshman year? The summer between 8th and 9th is ideal. If you’re a day behind on that, the best day to start is now. You’re still in great shape. You just won’t have quite as much runway.
Do scholarships really correlate with when you start? Yes. Our data showed it clearly. Students who started in 9th grade received significantly more scholarship offers than students who joined in 11th grade. The same profiles that impress admissions also impress scholarship committees.
