<p>First all I'd like to say is hello to the CC forums, first time here.
Now right to the main reason of this thread.
I haven't done my best the last couple of years, and last year ive done worse than ever before. Im going to high school next year and Ive realized that I need to up my game and I am now contently working hard. Will the past years count if I have a desire to get into harvard or Ivy league college, if my next 4 years in high school excel my past few. I was a immature little kid back then and thought life was a ride...but Ive now come to realize that its the exact opposite. I have a dream to get in the field of medicine.
And if I can...any advice on high school for the best opportunity to get into one of these great colleges?</p>
<p>I will give you one piece of advise: Get of CC, have fun, and don’t come back here until winter of your junior year. You will thank me later</p>
<p>yeah way too young to be on here. have fun. if you have fun the right way, that can help you get into college</p>
<p>Colleges don’t look nor ask for anything middle-school related. That being said, middle school success is not a very strong indicator of high school success. None of the 4.0 kids in middle school made it into top 10 colleges. I had about 7 B’s in middle school (and 3 in high school, all freshman year! :0), and so did many of my friends. We worked our butts off in high school, and made it into HYPS! </p>
<p>It’s good to have a positive attitude change going into high school, but like what everyone here is saying, it’s too early to be worrying about colleges. The only thing you should think about CC for in the next three years is how to do well on your AP and SATs.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>You’re not too young to think about college. </p>
<p>My advice for you is to go to the best high school you can, get straight A’s (even if this requires that you take some easy classes), read a lot (I can’t stress this point enough), and get involved in your high school.</p>
<p>I disagree with transfers advice to take easy classes to get straight As. Don’t do that.</p>
<p>khalidakash, although you are considerably young to take college seriously, it’s better to think now.</p>
<p>Do something you really like, i.e playing trombone or football or drawing etc. Participate in the activities you like, several leadership positions won’t hurt. use your summer holiday (unlike my country, 2 weeks holiday = agony :P) to the fullest. If you are into humanities, do some research about a certain culture or anything. </p>
<p>In short: Yep, start planning now. Don’t be like me :P</p>
<p>You are way too young to be worrying about college. Relax, and enjoy these years. Explore things you might be interested in, and don’t do them just for a resume.</p>
<p>However, if you insist on thinking about colleges, then please stay away from getting fixed on Ivies and other top colleges. Read “Beyond the Ivies,” “Colleges that Change Lives,” “Cool Colleges,” Creative Colleges" and other books that will free you up and avoid obsessing with a small number of selective schools. It will be fine to apply, but living your life for the 4 years of high school, with a rigid goal of getting into these schools, will hurt you, I promise you.</p>
<p>You should not take easy classes. It is better to get a B in a hard class, than an A in an easy one. Challenge yourself, but not to the point of being overstressed.</p>
<p>You do not have to go to the best high school to gain admission to Ivies etc. In fact, they are actively looking for students who are at schools that have never sent anyone to their college, and for students who have made something of themselves without educational privileges in high school.</p>
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<p>Even though most universities claim that this statement is true, my experience as well as those of my friends suggest that it is totally false.</p>
<p>I think the book “What High Schools Don’t Tell You” by Elizabeth Wissener Gross would be great place for you to start. The author makes the point that winter of junior year is actually way too late to start thinking about college. She advocates starting to plan with the summer before 9th grade.</p>
<p>Soon CC will be full of 7th grade college chance threads…</p>
<p>This might sound old but have fun. </p>
<p>Do your best, take challenging classes, join things you love, make friends. </p>
<p>Honestly, you can’t control your high school life and get through it just for the sake of college. It won’t work out.</p>
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<p>True, but far too young to obsess over it like many people do on CC (myself included to some degree)</p>
<p>High school is a joke, too.</p>
<p>If it’s not actually important to you to volunteer or participate in certain extracurriculars, you shouldn’t do them. You should only do those things if you really want to.</p>
<p>People who do that stuff just so they can brag about how they got into HYPS are really annoying. I love when people stop participating in all their clubs second semester senior year. So great.</p>
<p>Have fun in high school.</p>
<p>It is totally true that getting a B in a hard course is better than an A in an easy one, but I think that they really want to see you stretching yourself. For instance I, Harvard '14, am totally and thoroughly a humanities-and-arts person. So when I take a year of easy elective science and a year of AP Chemistry, getting an A in the first and only barely getting a B in the second (let me tell you, if you get a C+ at my high school, you are in the company of no one who is headed any higher than the fourth- or fifth-ranked public school in the state) really meant something. If I had gotten a B in APUS, then I would probably just not be Ivy caliber. However, here Lirazel is headed to Harvard, while all the science freaks who took nothing challenging that was not in their direct area of interest got rejected. (And me with a ~top-40% GPA, too.) Anyway. Do what you love, and be really good at it. If you aren’t really good at it (B in APUS, never make the advanced band in trombone, whatever), you probably won’t be headed to Harvard. On the other hand, there are lots of hellza smart people at, you know, the second-ranked public school of your state who just never ended up super involved in any extracurriculars, preferring to have lives or read or play computer games or study or WHATEVER. Happening to some of my friends who have test scores 'most equivalent to mine and who I never feel smarter than conversation-wise. Life’s good in a top-50 or -100 college.</p>
<p>^ This post makes me inclined to believe that you were not actually accepted to Harvard…</p>
<p>Why? Because I got a B in a course at a science magnet high school that is ranked top 10 in the country by US News and World Report? (Important qualifier I forgot to mention: I still got a 5 and 770 on the AP and SAT II.) Because I am friends with smart kids who aren’t going to super-great colleges? Because my transcript is crap? (~1 B and 1 B+ a year, then straight As senior year…? Is that crap?) Or is it my ranking, which my school doesn’t actually provide? I might be as high as top 15%, or out of the top half. I do have Presidential-Scholars-worthy test scores and a list of national and state awards as long as your arm. Haha, my goat is gotten (because ■■■■■■ really bother me and I am so not), so PM me if you like and I can link you to a couple websites with my name winning awards. For less effort but less verifiability you could just look up my profile elsewhere on CC.</p>
<p>“Is it better to get a B in a hard class or an A in an easy class?”</p>
<p>Unless you go to a very reputable school (see: Lirazel), your best bet is actually just to get the A in the hard class. Because others you are competing with for spots will be.</p>
<p>Lirazel, i think jersey was referring to the poor choice of words and grammar you used in your post. I don’t blame you since this is only a forum…</p>
<p>anyway, the topic starter (forgot your username), I think you are too early for hardcore decisions as of now. BUT start thinking about basic decisions like what subject area do you want to stress on, ACT and SAT, and extra curricular. and then pursue them in high school if you want a shot at HYPS.</p>