what should I do/ expect before I start college?

[Frank]

Learn to do laundry. Learn to food shop.

Have some alcohol so that you what it's like and won't be curious at a frat party, where there may be predators waiting for you to get drunk.

Buy yourself a paper calendar, and plan to mark it with due dates of major projects. Seriously. Even if you use an electronic calendar for your appointments.

Whether college has a higher work load depends on how much of a load you took on during high school.

You will not have teachers watching you as closely. You'll be responsible for working on the midterm paper that is due at the midterm, and your professor might not remind you that you should be working on it.

High school was about teaching you to read and write and think. There is not much you can do this summer to make up for what you may have missed in the past four years.