TIME is the space when someone graduates from high school. What does this mean? It means that you can have all the time in your life thinking on the options that you will have for your career success. Relax! Studying in tertiary education is definitely not a competition. You can be successful even when you graduate at 25. So if you are not that rich, this article is definitely for you. To be successful in college means to start working for it as early as when you are still in your senior year in high school.

If you are studying in a Montessori or a Waldorf school, chances are famous universities such as Cornell, Yale, Georgetown or Johns Hopkins will go to your university to hold college recruitment fairs. In these college recruitment fairs, it’s like a shopping binge for the best colleges you will ultimately go to. Here you will find the college admissions staffs giving talks on how to be admitted to their colleges. They will give virtual tours on how a student’s life in college looks like. They will give tips on how to submit a very convincing college essay. Pay attention to all these speeches. Jot down notes.

Then wait for the time that you will graduate. Then you will have to prepare for your SAT. You need to review for it during the months after your graduation. If possible, befriend your teacher beforehand while graduation is still around the corner because this can become your tutor in the SAT reviews in key subjects such as critical reading, mathematics and writing. Then you will be ready to take the exam. The exam costs $48 but indigents can waive that amount provided you deliver the pertinent documents to the exam administrators.

The exam is held seven times a year here in the United States – once each from the months of January to July. Once you have passed the SAT, it is now time to scout for any college to enroll in. Oftentimes, during college fairs, college admissions staffs give out tips on how to pass academic and sports scholarships. There are different kinds of study grants – there’s full scholarship, half scholarship and scholarship by semester or scholarship by subject or by units taken. That all depends on how you perform in the exam.

And then again, even community colleges or vocational institutions in your state consider passing the SAT a great factor in determining which college applicants are worthy to be enrolled in their colleges. Community colleges and vocational institutions are great conduits to go to regular colleges. Once you have graduated to a three-year program in a community college, there is a great possibility that your regular college years will be accelerated.

If you cannot pass the academic and sports scholarships, then you can always take college grants offered by various organizations. There are even college grants offered by Fortune 500 companies like Microsoft (they mostly cater to computer-related programs), Coca-cola (for economics students), and Shell (for environmental, forestry and agricultural students) and many others. This is part of the corporate social responsibility of the companies after all.