When should a high school student complete a career assessment?

We recommend thinking about it seriously during the Junior year of high school - certainly by the end of the Junior year. Just to give you an example of why: we spoke with a really terrific, very bright, high school senior and asked her, "What are you thinking of majoring in?" and she responded, "It depends what schools I get accepted into." How a student can possibly pick a school without thinking about career fields offered there as somewhere near the top of the of factors to be considered? By working through a career assessment process, a high school student could be armed with more self-knowledge (academic skills and potential, life interests, and personality traits that are linked to career field choices), so that they have better ideas about what types of schools to choose based on career field offerings that the specific student is likely to enjoy and be successful in. If they choose a school that offers strong programs in areas that we know in advance are likely to be of interest to the student, then perhaps we can cut down on changes of majors and time spent in school (and thus, money, of course).