True min-maxing probably can't be achieved until the second or maybe even later runs.
One preview mentioned that the students you temporarily recruit for a month can appear in the story segments if they're relevant, so I can see myself wanting a list of who all can appear and try to recruit those students for those months. Not to mention work on training Byleth's stats to permanently recruit as many students as I can too.
It's gonna be hard not to overthink and over plan things... I still don't know if I want to start with the house I like the most or hold off on them until a NG+ run (but then run the risk of burning myself out before I even get to them).
You could just like play it for fun tho instead ---
Ironically, the best kart racer to ever grace a Nintendo console is indeed a PSX era classic - Crash Team Racing - IGN