<p>not</p>
<p>having</p>
<p>enough</p>
<p>fun</p>
<p>…seriously.</p>
<p>also, i should never have taken latin for like 4 years, which led me to AP Virgil junior year, which led me to thoughts of suicide. JK. not really ;)</p>
<p>Slacking off first semester senior year because I thought I would get into my ED school.</p>
<p>Thinking A-'s were good enough.</p>
<p>Not finding this website earlier. Seriously. If I had known how hard it was to get into top schools, I would’ve tried much harder.</p>
<p>My freshman year was lame compared to my later years because I transferred into a new school. My freshman year lists only one honors class and a 3.61 weighted GPA. It’s not my fault my freshman school had limited honors courses, but I would have liked to see a better start. Also, I had no extracurriculars or even thought about college until the beginning of my sophomore year. I made up for the year quite nicely with better grades and more leadership roles in EC’s.</p>
<p>My biggest mistake was not taking the SAT or SAT II’s(I only did the ACT)…I thought I didn’t want to apply to any T20 schools, and changed my mind too late in the game</p>
<ol>
<li>Not realizing I would be applying to ivy and top LACs.</li>
<li>Not finding CC soon enough.</li>
<li>Not caring enough about the SAT/SATII/ACT.</li>
<li>Not realizing that being first generation would make the college search process EXTREMELY difficult.</li>
<li>Not trying harder on the PSAT.</li>
<li>Not getting involved in cooler EC’s.</li>
</ol>
<p>… this could go on and on…</p>
<ol>
<li>Not finding leading extracurriculars freshman year</li>
<li>Not finding the website sooner</li>
<li>Not taking up research, internship opportunities</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li>Not knowing how to dress/put makeup on well freshman year!</li>
<li>Being akward. Still a problem.</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li> Letting my grades slip in my sophomore and junior years</li>
<li> Not leaving my old high school sooner</li>
<li> Taking AP World History</li>
<li> Not taking physics or caring about calculus</li>
</ol>
<p>1)Not taking more than two APs senior year! Currently, I’m only in AP Lit and AP Euro. I originally signed up for those plus Art History and Studio Art, but Art History was dropped, and Studio Art conflicted with Euro. Now, I wish that I would have taken Bio or GoPo, or registered/self-studied for Human Geo or Comparative Gov. Oh well. </p>
<p>2)Not studying for the SAT/ACT. Honestly, when I took both, I couldn’t have cared less. I primarily guessed on the last few math questions on both, and didn’t bother to take my practice tests seriously. My top choices are test-optional (and I didn’t send my tests!), but better scores would have been nice.</p>
<p>3)Doing absolutely nothing during my summers, minus marching band. Sure, band ate my time, but I still had time that could be better spent than doing absolutely nothing. </p>
<p>4)Not taking SATIIs. When I was a junior, I was interested in art school, and felt that SATIIs were not necessary. Unfortunately for me, my interests took a 180, and I would prefer to go to a selective LAC for Anthropology/Philosophy/Russian/Linguistics. Way different. Perhaps if I found CC sooner, I would have at least registered for some of them.</p>
<p>5)Taking Spanish. In middle school, I was really indecisive over what language to pick, so my mother told me to take Spanish because it would be the most practical. While this seemed like a decent idea at the time, I soon learned that I disliked Spanish culture, and would much prefer to learn French or German. Unfortunately, if I wanted to receive high school credit for Spanish 1, I would have to continue to Spanish 2. Thus, I disliked my foreign language classes, and wound up dropping Spanish after level 3. </p>
<p>:|</p>
<p>“Thinking A-'s were good enough.”
HEYYYY what’s wrong with A-? I have gotten nearly all A-'s in high school haha.</p>
<p>“While this seemed like a decent idea at the time, I soon learned that I disliked Spanish culture, and would much prefer to learn French or German.”
wow I really feel for you on that one. 
sorry to hear that! for me it was the opposite, i began attending an honors school and was sooo behind in French and ended up hating it freshman year. but in the end i fell absolutely in love with it, language, culture, etc. and it’s now my favorite class! currently in IB French. I really do feel bad for you though!</p>
<p>I wish I could say I don’t regret anything, I mean UChicago did send an acceptance letter my way, but still, I felt miserable at times. Especially sophomore year.</p>
<ol>
<li>Waiting until sophomore year to take a foreign language</li>
<li>Doing so horribly in math for the 1st 3 years and opting to drop it completely senior year (I literally could not go on with math in high school; it’s not my subject at all no matter how hard I try)</li>
<li>Not studying as much as I should have, but I am lazy and apathetic toward high school in general, even though I’m surrounded by friends who are fighting to be valedictorian.</li>
</ol>
<p>this thread is extremely depressing lol</p>
<p>Freshman year not really caring about grades. Also before 9th grade started we got just a list of classes (not schedules though) and I was in Algebra 2, English 9 honors, Global 1 honors, Advanced physical science honors. I heard from past students that APS honors was really hard so i go out of it and went to regular. At the time I wasnt interested in science (I am now so this really annoys me -.-). 10th grade we do Bio, and the kids in honors 9th grade went into AP bio right away. Couldve been me but… -_-</p>
<p>Also, Science Research at my school. 4 year program- you gotta start it freshman year. I said no… =p</p>
<p>Not joining interesting EC’s, or starting new ones</p>
<p>Yeah I know ahaha. But hey, it just shows how many of us made the same mistakes. It is inevitable.</p>
<p>Not knowing that 4 8th grade courses factored into my high school GPA. Goodbye, valedictorian. </p>
<p>Being a lazy bum lol. I feel like I could be doing much better grades-wise, but I find myself here on CC/other random forums or stumbling at times when I should be doing my physics IA…</p>
<ol>
<li>Not striving for A’s freshman year. Got mostly B’s and it brought my gpa down and just barely out of the top 10%. </li>
<li>Not realizing that my first choice college would be Brown University.</li>
<li>Not starting to prepare for the ACT until the summer before my senior year. </li>
<li>Not doing something cool to stand out like start a business or club.</li>
</ol>
<p>BECAME COMPLACENT, I thought I was extremely smart, so I didn’t work hard, which screwed up my gpa. Thank-god for my SAT scores, really saved me when it came time to apply to colleges.</p>
<p>Oh jeez, this thread is really depressing. I certainly made a big deal of mistakes in high school, starting with freshman year, and not doing homework/turning it in, but my single biggest mistake would’ve probably been
- Failing AP Bio. I didn’t even need to take that AP class senior year. I just wanted to be in it with the “smart” kids, and have 4+ AP exams to boast about/complain about come April/May. Well, miss smartie me failed the class during fall semester when I was APPLYING to universities.
- Being over-committed. I was in band all 4 years, in clubs, doing SAT prep (from sophomore to senior year), in honors/AP classes, and in academic decathlon. Doing everything at once killed my GPA. SAT scores were okay. GPA sucked. and it didn’t matter how committed I was. My GPA just wasn’t up there…
- Class planning. I wish I had taken calc senior year instead of junior year. Maybe I would’ve been more prepared for the class then and understood integrals more (or maybe not :P). I would’ve taken APUSH instead of AP Physics. I’m NOT a science person whatsoever.
- Like the others, not realizing that PSAT was the NMSQT. My SAT scores were at least 300+ points higher than my PSAT score. If I had gotten similar scores for the two, I might’ve been a national merit recipient (or at least “commended” for it).</p>
<p>I regret nothing. Maybe I will when I get rejected from all the schools I care about, but I don’t think so. I’m having fun in high school. I slacked off sometimes but got to explore my interests in my free time, which has allowed me to develop all sorts of hobbies and ECs organically (didn’t do any clubs freshman year, which was nice, because now my time is being sucked up by things I care about, not things I think I should care about).</p>
<p>I will say, though, that if I had to give advice:
- Study hard in math and never settle for coasting through class.
- Get into volunteering. It’s very gratifying.
- In the long run, taking a class you have genuine interest in > doing a class you hate for the AP.</p>
<p>Well, not thinking about SAT IIs till junior year when I could have done well on the chem and bio the last two years…kicking myself for it, but there’s still time</p>