<p>Hey so I'm not a freshman but I was wondering what advice you seniors applying to colleges would give to a high school freshman just starting out next year</p>
<p>what school activities, summer experiences, sports, volunteer experiences, classes, grades etc. do you think really help you? what do you wish you would have done?</p>
<p>thanks!</p>
<p>You should really try to get good grades instead of bad ones. That’s something that trips up a lot of people; they blow off school or don’t study and get Ds and Fs and start demanding to be chanced for Harvard, Yale, and Princeton triple-enrollment programs. You should try to get As and Bs if you can; if you can avoid anything lower than a C because it makes your transcript less competitive.</p>
<p>For the SATs; the bigger the number, the better. The highest you can get is 2400; if you can get that, either in one sitting or by rigging it with Score Choice (combining multiple scores from different sittings into one SAT score) then that’s great. You don’t have to do that to get into a good school though; as long as you try and do reasonably well you should be fine. If the SAT is not your bag, there’s also the ACT test. And if you hate both of them, there are lots of [Score</a> Optional Schools](<a href=“http://www.fairtest.org/university/optional]Score”>ACT/SAT Optional List for Fall 2025 - Fairtest) you can attend.</p>
<p>Extracurriculars are really important especially if you apply to an Ivy League college or another college whose admissions standards are extremely restrictive. The reason is that a most people who apply there have 4.0 GPAs or above and high SATs. Your activities (volunteer work, internships, clubs, leadership) help make you stand out. If you want to go to almost any other school in the country, then you don’t have to worry about getting a lot of activities since they focus more on your numbers.</p>
<p>“Passion” is a word that you hear a lot. Basically, colleges want you to be really intense about stuff. You can’t just play; you have to be passionate about it. You have to make love to your baseball glove on a weekly basis. The good news is that it doesn’t really matter what specific sport or activity you do; as long as it’s not illegal, you can do it. The only caveat is that you have to enjoy it. Don’t just do something to get into colleges because chances are you won’t stand out as much as someone who is genuinely obsessed with their activity. </p>
<p>Before you begin figuring out how to get into college, figure out what you’re looking at in a college. Harvard isn’t for everyone, and neither is Utica. It’s better to go to a school with lower prestige that you’re happy with than one that’s super-famous that you hate. </p>
<p>If you want to read more, check out [these</a> tags](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/tags/]these”>College Confidential Forums). Since this is a college forum, most of what we talk about here revolves around getting laid, trying to get into college, complaining about how the cool kids are always trying to keep us down, complaining about how the District Attorney is trying to keep us out of college with his drug-trafficking indictments trying to deal with roommates, complaining about colleges that we didn’t get into, getting laid, pretending like a 3.8 GPA is really low, complaining about people who drink beer, complaining about people who don’t drink beer, getting laid, freaking out over deadlines that we knew about years in advance, complaining about stupid guidance counselors who can’t send out rec letters properly, complaining about the [Common</a> Application](<a href=“http://www.commonapp.org/]Common”>http://www.commonapp.org/), complaining about the Ivy League colleges, getting laid, complaining about affirmative action, and pretending as if people on an Internet forum can predict whether or not you’ll get into Dartmouth.</p>
<p>Wait three years.</p>
<p>Seriously, just do the best that you can and try to be involved.</p>
<p>Focus on a few activities that you really like. Don’t TRY TO DO as many as you can to impress the colleges because THE DANG COMMONAPP ONLY HAS A FEW SPACES FOR EC’s HAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
AHAHAAHHHAHAHAHAA</p>
<p>I’m not a senior, but the things you ought to do in high school are pretty simple.</p>
<p>Have fun, but don’t let yourself slack off. There’s a lot that you can get done (and a lot of it is stuff that your school might not lead you through). Don’t completely freak out over college stuff (cause I mean, you don’t want a mid-life crisis at 14) but know that it’s looming over the horizon and that what you do now will affect your future.</p>
<p>Basically, high school is about keeping a balance between contradicting sides of work and play. Find a good balance, and you’ll be fine.</p>
<p>First, get off this forum and save yourself all the stress.</p>
<p>Do well in school, take as many rigorious courses you can.</p>
<p>Don’t do anything you’ll regret later on. and the SUMMER before senior year attempt to take some SAT classes. (Bad choice for me) </p>
<p>And don’t waste summers doing menial things, try to find something actually worth while and rewarding besides “hanging out in cancun or just slumping down in the house”</p>
<p>I’m only a junior, but the best (and most-cliched) advice I can give is to simply try your hardest all throughout high school. Truly display your best work in school, take part in extra-curricular activities that you love, and strive to become the best student/person combination you can be. Don’t do anything because you think colleges want you do it. Be the best you can be for four years. Do things you love because you love them. Learn things you want to learn. </p>
<p>P.S. Remember that College Confidential is a mixed blessing: an incredible resource, but often a skewed view of reality as well. < I’m still working on this. </p>
<p>Good Luck!</p>
<p>Doing well in school is not as difficult as you think. I went into high school assuming getting a 4.0 GPA was some impossibly difficult and time consuming task. Just do your homework, pay attention in class, and look over your notes before the test, and you will be more than successful. Pick 2 extracurriculars and become as heavily involved as you can. Preemptively prepare for the SAT - read things like the Economist daily to improve your vocabulary. Assuming you are reasonably intelligent, do these things and you will get into any school of your choice.</p>
<p>Honestly I disagree with everyone who is telling you to avoid this forum. I find the amount of information on here to be incredible, and absolutely valuable. It has, and will continue to help me make more informed decisions about my future. You just need to have a critical eye for what information is correct and what is fabricated.</p>
<p>Jahaba’s post is spot on.</p>
<p>I would also suggest befriending teachers and creating lasting relationships with a few of them…that way they can write a GREAT rec</p>
<p>Whenever I see “rocket6louise” I imagine that Reggie Rocket is posting on CC.</p>
<p>Like everyone’s been doing definitely get involved in a few ECs that you actually want to do and be passionate about them. Do as much as you possibly can with the ECs you choose. Attend summer programs focused on them, go to competitions, compete, just be involved as much as you can. Never do something that think will get you in to a good college, do it because you want to. </p>
<p>Summer was mentioned before. Actually use your summers to do something rather than lounging around the house. See if you do a summer program (TASP and RSI are the most prestigious? I don’t really know much about them) but anything really is good.</p>
<p>All the other academic stuff is obvious. Take rigorous courses, take APs, take honors, get good grades, do well on the SAT etc etc. That stuff is basic.</p>
<p>Lastly, scope out colleges a bit early and take tests (SATII’s) accordingly and also be very aware of deadlines. I missed a EDI date and some apps because i never looked at the deadlines and just assumed i didn’t need to take any SATII’s.</p>
<p>Lifegr is right, to an extent, if you don’t like it, don’t do it! Do what you like and stop trying to take every AP class to impress that one Ivy school.</p>
<p>I’m a senior 2011!!!woohoo!!!..but anyways lol</p>
<h1>1-volunteer as much as you can, go past the graduation requirement if you can.</h1>
<h1>2-take you grades seriously, dont let them drop because of anything…your friends,videogames,extracurriculars,parents.NOTHING.</h1>
<h1>3-bE YOURSELF.trust me, everyone hates the FAKE freshman.</h1>
<h1>4-Be friendly.Having no friends in high school makes the 4 years feel like decades.</h1>
<h1>5-Get involved!!!join a team,club,organization.ANYTHING.colleges love that.especially if you hold a position in that organization.</h1>
<h1>6-Start getting a feel of your future.it’s never to early to research some colleges and think about what you want to be when you grow up.</h1>
<h1>7-HAve fun-because if you follow these simple rules you’ll have an exciting high school life and breeze through it with satisfaction</h1>
<p>:)</p>
<p>Honestly…at this point: just do well in school and do some things outside of school.</p>
<p>It is NOT worth stressing about college as a high school freshman.</p>
<p>Just get used to high school…learn how it works and just do the best you can.</p>
<p>As a previous poster stated, it’s a great idea to forge lasting, meaningful relationships with a few of your teachers. For example, my recommendations will come from my debate coach of 4 years and my English teacher of 4 years. They know me better than any other teachers, and thanks to class discussions and hard work, they’ll probably write me great recs. That’s what you should aim for - the teachers whom you’ll learn from over the span of your entire high school career are often the ones that are most important to befriend, impress, and become likable to.</p>
<p>Other than that, pick two or three extracurricular activities that you’re genuinely interested in (this can be anything - a sport, a club, something done on your own), and work very hard for four years on those 2 or 3 things, rather than picking 10 things and doing almost nothing with most of them.</p>
<p>Aside from these two things, choose the most rigorous classes available at your school and aim for a high GPA each year. Study up for the SAT and ACT; take both of them, sometime your junior year. Also, if offered, take the PSAT your junior year.</p>
<p>And lastly, enjoy high school. Make new friends, have some interesting experiences, go places and do things, and at least once in a while, be a normal teenager. Don’t make studying your life; it should play a central role, but the most outstanding kids to the top universities are usually fascinating people with great stories to tell and a unique personality. Just be yourself, and go out into the world with some confidence and a reasonable head on your shoulders. You’ll be fine.</p>
<p>Good luck to you. :)</p>
<p>(Also, get off CC and don’t return until your sophomore year ends or later ;)).</p>
<p>Best experience: You get to have loads of fun, meet so many different people.
You are your own boss. No one is going to tell you when to do stuff. You just have to do it at the right time (avoid procrastinating).
I’m not the partying type, but if you are - don’t go crazy. There are parties everywhere, random people even invite you for parties which I suggest you don’t go for. Go for the ones hosted by people you know& trust. </p>
<p>Worst part: Homework sucks!! There’s so much of it. That’s why I said you shouldn’t procrastinate. If you do, it hits you all at once. You will have to pull all nighters, not fun.
Some people are really narrow - minded and might judge you easily. PLEASE IGNORE THEM. </p>
<p>Dorms:
Don’t expect anything fancy esp in your freshman year. If you’ll be living in a double room, then prepare your mind for possible roommate issues. You will either like your roommate so much you become besties, or you hate her so much you’d only go to your room to sleep (I’m not joking). There’s obviously somewhere in between those 2 extremes :)</p>
<p>Always talk to your Residence Advisor (the person in charge of your dorm floor/hall) if you can’t handle roommate issues anymore and would like to change. Please be respectful to your RA, do not break hall policies. I’m an RA and freshman girls can be such a pain.</p>
<p>BTW., cafetaria food sucks so enjoy momma’s cooking while you can. Fast food would probably become a favorite, please work out!! </p>
<p>Social life: Most schools have lots of clubs and activities. You could also go watch school games. Oh yeah, did I mention loads of cute guys lol, and weird ones too :-/ </p>
<p>A guiding rule for me: Don’t do anything you won’t be able to tell mum about.
Stay true to yourself. Don’t try to be someone else for anyone - not worth it.
Don’t procrastinate.
Get enough sleep, so you don’t sleep in class and miss out on important info.
STUDY HARD. Your gpa counts!!</p>
<p>[The</a> College experience | So You Want To Be Homesick](<a href=“http://wannabehomesick.blogspot.com/2010/06/college-experience.html]The”>http://wannabehomesick.blogspot.com/2010/06/college-experience.html)</p>