Aspiring Harvard Applicant Needs Advice : )

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
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<p>Alright, so as of now its the 3rd 9 weeks of my high school freshman year. I've had straight A's (4.0 GPA unweighted, 4.75 weighted because in middle school i took some advanced classes that gave high school credit but unfortunately were only honors for middle school not high school.) </p>

<p>I'm involved in:</p>

<p>FBLA (officer)
Amnesty international
Ecology Club
Spanish Honor
Key Club</p>

<p>I have over 600 hours of community service (gotten through clubs), i want to start consistently volunteering somewhere (maybe a political office or something) and i'm going to start a community service project with FBLA soon.</p>

<p>In my freshman classes i'm getting(no - or + in my school thankfully)</p>

<p>Bio Honors: A
Alg II Honors: A
Eng I Honors: A
World Hist. Honors: A
Intro to Information Tech: A
AP Spanish: A</p>

<p>Now here comes the problem....
Next year, as a Sophomore, i'm going to be taking </p>

<p>AP Biology
AP European hist.
AP Psychology
Eng II Honors
Business and entrepreneurship principles Honors or leadership training Honors (probably the
second)
and Pre-Cal Honors</p>

<p>In addition to that i want to do the following EC's:</p>

<p>Student Government (get elected)
FBLA ( one of the top officers or even VP)
speech and debate (officer if possible)
Ecology (officer if possible)
Key club (officer if possible)
amnesty (officer if possible)
Math Honor (officer if possible)
Science Honor (officer if possible)
Social Studies Honors (officer if possible)</p>

<p>by sophomore year i'll be volunteering consistently and have my community service project through FBLA.</p>

<p>So my questions are: </p>

<p>-Is it possible for me to do all of these EC's/volunteering and still maintain straight A's even with 3 APs?</p>

<ul>
<li>Are the Ap's i chose hard to get a 5 on?</li>
</ul>

<p>-I'm planning to go to an ivy league, if i continue to do this define my chances of getting accepted in general or even by school if u want =]. </p>

<p>-Feel free to comment on anything i've posted and thank you guys so much for your help!</p>

2

<p>You should be fine.</p>

3

<p>only do that if you still have time to…have a life.
lol. IMHO it’s not worth worrying so much and sacrificing all your free time.</p>

4

<p>but then that’s probably why i’ll never get into harvard =P</p>

5

<p>haha i know what you mean, but still, i enjoy my EC’s because by the end of the day i know like half my school and they’re lots of fun, even if theres lots of work involved ; )</p>

6

<p>You might be spreading yourself too thin with all those ECs. It’s not just the question of maintaining your A average while doing all that; it’s the question of whether your ECs will read too much like a laundry list of tepid commitments. I would concentrate on two or three that you are passionate about and really excel at them. I had an interviewee who handed me a resume of four pages listing so many activities that she could not possibly have been deeply involved in any of them. She diluted her resume with the laundry list.</p>

<p>Also, are you not planning on continuing in Spanish language as well as Spanish Honor Society? If you are aiming at top schools, you’ll want to have had four consecutive years of a language by the time you graduate from high school.</p>

7

<p>I understand what you mean by the EC’s but right now i’m in 5 and i’m deeply committed in all of them, i’m sure i can just take out some of the ones i added for sophomore year to make it better. Besides, most of the clubs at my school only have an activity every now and then. As for Spanish , i have 2 credits from middle school, i’m going to get one for AP this year, and a second during summer for ap lit. After taking that i can’t really continue Spanish or the Spanish Honor Society (i’ll probably try anyways though).</p>

<p>By the way, lets say i go through with all the EC’s i listed and i get an officer position in most/all of them, will that still be considered a laundry list?</p>

8

<p>bro, do things that you like doing</p>

9

<p>First of all, 9th grade is a bit too early to be on CC. It’s harmful to mental health.
On the question posed in your last post: you might be deeply committed, but are you actually passionate about anything of these activities? Harvard wants someone who will eventually make a difference in their chosen field - if you like science, conduct research; if you like writing, try to get published; etc.
If you were an admissions officer, how would you describe yourself in a few words? The AP kid? The multi club officer? I’m pretty sure Harvard would rather see something more definitive like a clear love for music, science, math, debate, etc. rather than a jack of all trades approach to everything.
Your academics are obviously good - I doubt you will need to worry about that aspect of your future application.
However, your ECs seem to be mainly in school, which, although not necessarily a bad thing, does not show real initiative or passion.
I see that you have SGA, speech and debate, and FBLA as ECs. If do very well in these activities, it would be clear that you have an interest in politics/business - I would advise you to focus on meaningful activities like these and try to gain state or national recognition.
As for whether you will be able to maintain all of this - totally depends on you. AP Bio is a pretty hard class - at least at my school. Your other two APs will probably not be so hard.</p>

<p>It is impossible to chance a high school freshman for college admissions. You have listed the courses you will take and the ECs you will participate in, but we obviously do not know your achievement in any of these - and to put it bluntly achievement is what matters, not just participation. </p>

<p>So, I guess to summarize this absurdly long post, I would suggest that you find one or two areas of interest for you and participate in ECs accordingly. When you have ECs in such unrelated areas it truly does look like a laundry list. Especially when you say that they only have an activity every now and then…that shows that you don’t have an interest in these activities. The definition of a laundry list is a diverse assortment of activities with no significant achievement in any of them. Which is not only bad looking on applications but wastes time that could have been spent on things you actually enjoy! E.g. hanging out with friends or just generally having fun in high school.</p>

10

<p>“First of all, 9th grade is a bit too early to be on CC. It’s harmful to mental health.”
To att159 and Gonzalo, this statement pretty much sums it up! Gonzalo, you are going to need Prozac by application season of your senior year if you don’t relax, and starting with a club reduction might be a good first step. As att159 indicated, there IS such a thing as being spread too thin, and the Ivy admission committees know just as well as you and I do that there is no possible way for you to be committed to any one of those clubs because you have so many others to address! Choose some- half, maybe- become extremely involved in them, get to know the teacher in charge of each one, cultivate specific achievements and foster positive relationships with your mentors so that you will have sincere recommendations to send in three years from now. Make sure the clubs you choose to keep correspond as directly as possible to your academic strong suits, intended major, or possible career interests; nix any club that you joined merely as an application booster, because it will, in fact, do just the opposite.</p>

<p>Of course, this is only my advice; YOU have to choose what you feel is in your best interest. Just keep in mind that many of us have more high school experience than you do at this juncture and honestly have your best interest in mind. Reducing the QUANTITY of clubs will insure you a better QUALITY commitment to each and therefore a more appealing application. Good luck with your decision- and maintaining your sanity through sophomore, junior, and senior years!</p>

11

<p>I disagree with the people who say you shouldn’t be on here yet. I think it’s great that you’re already thinking about how to go about getting what you want.</p>

<p>My advice to you is to keep going the way you’re going, but just know that you have to go full force in all of your activities. If you’re going to do FBLA, plan to become a state or national officer (I was a state officer). If you’re going to do ecology club, perhaps think about getting involved with legislation at the local or state level (I was on my county’s environmental sustainability board). If you’re going to do student government, then don’t just stop at your school, go as big as you can (I was involved in the Maryland association of student councils as well as my county’s branch of the organization on top of doing a bunch of stuff to get other kids involved). </p>

<p>I guess the moral of my story is: even if you don’t think you’ll pursue careers in all of your activities, find something that you love about them (for me, it was always about public speaking or getting youth involved to inspire change) and go full throttle - while still maintaining your GPA and owning the SAT.</p>

<p>CC is a great tool and I honestly believe it’s one of the top 3 things that helped me ultimately get into the schools I did. Check out the results threads - they’ll tell you what it’s going to take to get into Harvard.</p>

<p>Good luck and feel free to message me if you have anymore questions :)</p>

<p>PS. Here’s a secret: EVERYONE at yale had schedules in high school that over-extended them… I think my outrageously crazy involvement in high school is what prepared me most for life here (besides time management, I learned quite a few lessons early on) and I wouldn’t have changed a thing. AND I still had a life (meaning I had no trouble making best friends that I still keep in touch with)!</p>

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<p>I completely agree that the OP should be thinking about colleges, etc. - most serious applicants begin laying out a plan of some sorts quite early on. The reason I advised the OP against CC is that it can be addicting. At least it was for me, and it made me a bit unproductive back in my younger days. True, reading the results threads is extremely helpful, but that is a once per year happening.</p>

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<p>After reading all of the posts u guys have written i want to say a few things. For one, i find it very good to have a CC account early on as it gives me an advantage not only for me to be competitive during app. but so that i don’t make the same mistakes others have made when they were in my shoes. </p>

<pre><code> That being said, yes, i am interested in half of my EC list. I’ll start with the ones i’m not interested in… I joined Ecology, Amnesty, and Key Club simply because they were in a club fair at school and all the other clubs happened to not be there that day ( or there application was due before the fair for some reason -_-).

   The ones i am interested in are : FBLA, Speech and Debate, and definetly Student Council. I would also ENJOY being in Business honor society and the national honor society but that only comes junior/senior year another reason explaining why i joined other EC's that i'm semi-interested in. 

    The problem is i can easily become an officer at the 3 clubs i mentioned/joined as a 9th grader even though i'm semi-interested while i can't for debate or any other club that i enjoy but didn't join. I guess its not worth doing that though since i'm not very proud of those.

    Putting that aside, my 2 biggest passions are politics/government, and business. For the future i want to be a politician and/or business owner.

     I think what i'm going to do is next year continue FBLA as a high ranking officer (i'm going to try getting elected for district for 9th, states 10th, and higher up as 11th/12th), start student council, join debate and see if maybe i can become an officer the same year, then as a junior join NHS and BHS, with officer positions (period.) I think this is a much better way to approach my passions and define my interests. I can also add on community service at a political office of my choice and raise funds for a charitable cause (using biz. principles) with fbla as my community service project. What do you guys think of my new plan =]!?

</code></pre>

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<p>I think that’s a great plan - go for it! :slight_smile:
Some other ways to foster a political interest:

  • campaigning for politicans
  • girls/boys state (held summer after junior year)
  • Tomorrow25 - leadership program sponsored by Bentley College (summer after jr year)
  • various debate camps depending on your location
  • become a congressional page
  • if you like debate, Northwestern has a National HS Institute in Debate program - pretty selective and prestigious [url=<a href=“http://www.northwestern.edu/nhsi/]National”>National High School Institute – The Cherubs at Northwestern University]National</a> High School Institute - Cherubs<a href=“open%20to%20rising%2010-12”>/url</a>
  • junior statesman of america summer school (held at princeton, yale, northwestern, georgetown, stanford - rising juniors and seniors)</p>

<p>Duke TIP has some cool programs too, although I’m not as familiar with them.</p>

<p>I’ve heard of kids authoring and passing leglislation in high school, although I doubt you need anything like that to show your interest in politics.</p>

<p>You could try some sort of investment club if you have one at your school - one kid at my brother’s school made like $10,000 off an investment he made. </p>

<p>Another thing - if your school has a newspaper, perhaps you could add a political section, written by you? Or perhaps even contact a local newspaper about being a youth writer. Combining writing skills and a specific interest is always good.</p>

<p>If you feel strongly about certain issues, you could perhaps be involved in some sort of activism - not sure how you would go about doing that but I’m sure it’s possible. One of my friends has done some extensive work with PETA and I think she even worked on a cable access TV show about animal rights.
Good luck!</p>

15

<p>I think your course load is great, but yeah you might want to cut down on the ECs. Try a sport maybe as well. The ECs… like you said, seem like a laundry list.</p>

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<p>If you had an officer position in most or all of the ECs you listed, I would wonder whether you really spent enough time on each to do the job well and whether you cared about any of them deeply. If your involvement in them were all equal, I would not be able to tell where your passions were. I think you’d be making a mistake to try to get officer positions in that many ECs, as if that would impress admission committees. I think that would raise questions about you rather than impress them.</p>

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<p>I have tried sports : ). I did cross country and i’m doing track now, though i don’t really happen to like or hate running. I think i might do another sport next year, maybe i like foot ball a lot more =]!</p>

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<p>I appreciate all the answers you guys gave me, they changed my attitude toward electives completely and now i’m more defined to what i want and how to get it =]! Thank you guys so much :D</p>

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<p>I agree with the other posters who advised you to focus on fewer ECs. Adcoms are looking for evidence that you have done something that is very interesting, unusual, and/or substantial. Being officer of several clubs is none of those. While you’ll find students at top colleges who got in with the “standard” load of lots of normal ECs, most of these students will be rejected.</p>

<p>Cal Newport has a blog called “Study Hacks” with many insightful posts about what top colleges are looking for. The best quote from Newport: “But here’s the important point: juggling a large volume of relatively easy activities — though time-consuming — does not impress admissions officers. They want to build interesting classes; not diligent ones.”</p>