You will want to schedule a meeting with your counselor early in the semester to verify that you are "on track" for graduation and for meeting the college admission requirements for the college or colleges of your choice. It is better to find out about any problems now, when there is still time to correct them and add a class to your schedule if necessary. Admission requirements can generally be found on college websites. You can find a link to an index of college websites on the resource list at the right of this page, or you can just try googling "(name of college) admission requirements". In institutions where admissions and/or scholarship assistance is competitive, it is always better to go beyond the minimum requirements. Colleges want to see that you have challenged yourself, not just done what is necessary to "get by". A good guide is to aim for four credits in each of the "five solids"...math, science, English, social studies, and foreign language. (Hint: Don't walk into the guidance office the first day of school and expect that your counselor will have time for a detailed conversation about your college prospects. Counselors tend to be very busy the first week of school with scheduling issues, new enrollments, etc. You'll be better off waiting until the second week of school to ask for an appointment!)
College bound seniors should have taken the SAT and/or ACT during the spring of the junior year. If you did not, you should sign up ASAP for the earliest possible fall test date. If you were not satisfied with your spring test scores, you may sign up to retest. Sign up online at www.collegeboard.com for the SAT or www.actstudent.org for the ACT.
You should also begin to think about how you will pay for college. Parents and students need to have a serious talk and honestly discuss how much the parents will be able to help. Do not make the mistake of assuming that because you are a good student, you will get scholarships that will pay for everything. Unfortunately, "full ride" scholarships have always been pretty rare and even more difficult to get in today's economy. Have "the talk", and then begin to research all possible options early this fall. It won't hurt to sign up for a scholarship search service (as long as there is no fee for doing so- scam alert!) but don't count on finding a lot of money through one of these. Most students get most of their funding from the colleges themselves. Check the financial aid page of colleges you are considering; sometimes they have a separate scholarship application and sometimes you are considered for scholarships as a part of the admissions application. Another good place to check is your school guidance office or website; most will have a book or online listing of scholarships. Look through these on a regular basis, and apply for any and all for which you meet the qualifications. Your best bets are local scholarships, or those that will otherwise draw a fairly limited pool of applicants. National scholarships with fairly broad criteria (3.0 GPA) are probably a waste of your time as the applicant pool is so large. You can also check with your parent's employers, or with religious or community organizations to which you or your parents belong. Wherever you start looking, start looking and applying early, and continue the process throughout the fall. If you're serious about looking for scholarships, one book I would recommend is Ben Kaplan's "How to Go to College (Almost) For Free". Here's a short YouTube video with the author giving some more tips: