College: The Final Frontier. Well, no, the only final frontier in life is death, but to a high school student, college is the most important destination. Sure, some of us have thought about exactly where we want to go for college and exactly we want to do for a living afterwards, but many teenagers simply view college in general as the end goal. Personally, I don't believe college is the end of the road, as it is a stepping stone to get what I want (a comfortable life), but I'm definitely concerned about where I will attend college because it is a very steep step. But how do we know exactly where we want to go to school? Why, we search, of course.
Depending on how old you are, whether or not you've started looking at colleges is a matter of varying importance. If you're a freshman in high school, you should probably focus on getting adjusted to high school before you start planning for college; if your school offers a trip for sophomores and juniors to visit colleges and you happen to be the former, then you should take advantage of the opportunity, but it isn't absolutely necessary; but by the time you're a junior, or even going into your junior year of high school, you should start looking at colleges.
But why start so early? See, senior year is tough for several reasons. One, students have an enormous amount of classwork. Two, seniors get a few more chances to take the SAT's; however, these are the final chances before they send their college applications, so it's fairly important. Three, seniors have to work on college applications, which involves writing essays and filling out form after form. Four, the grades you get in your first semester of senior year are the last grades that colleges will see when you submit your transcript. Five: weren't you busy enough before all this? If you're reading this and are not a senior, you can imagine just how much work, in class and outside the classroom, you have, and add a whole semester of headaches to it.
The point is, you're going to find yourself crunched for time if you wait until the beginning of senior year to start looking at schools; yet, the middle of junior year might not be the best time either because that's another important year. In all actuality, junior year is the last full year of grades that will be reported on your transcript; it's also the first year that most students take the full SAT (and SAT II's) and/or ACT tests. You'll find yourself stressed enough and not able to get away for college visits unless you sacrifice your vacations, but you'll want to use those vacations to get some rest; trust me, you'll need that week or two of rest over winter break and won't want to spend it touring Georgetown.
You could conceivably spend the summer before senior year touring colleges, but keep this in mind: this is your last high school summer. After this, you'll be packing up for college and leaving home. You should enjoy your summer, work to save up for college, or even practice for standardized tests that you have to do well on in a few months. But, if you don't have much of anything planned for your summer before senior year and don't have friends to worry about, then you can take those few months to sort out where you want to go to school. Besides, the advantage of looking this late is that everything you see will be fresh in your mind when you're filling our college applications.
I'd say the best time to start looking at colleges is the summer before junior year, but you should take a second look before senior year. Remember, though, that you should do as much as possible over the summer so you don't make yourself busier than usual during the school year. And if you happen to have a bad memory, take notes during your visits so that you can look back on them later and clearly make an informed decision.