<p>Not taking a rigorous enough schedule.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Taking AP Human Geography freshman year trying to get college credit (failed the AP exam with a 1 even though I studied hard) instead of honors World Geography which would have been an easy 100 vs the 85’s I got in AP Human Geography</p></li>
<li><p>NOT FINDING THESE FORUMS SOON ENOUGH</p></li>
<li><p>Tanking freshman year grades…</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Freshman year - bad grades, no ECs
Sophomore year - amazing grades, no ECs
Junior year - amazing grades, great ECs</p>
<p>i didnt realize the importance of ninth grade and although i didnt do terrible, if those grades were on par with the rest of my high school career, i might be a lot better off now (not stressing about ivies)</p>
<p>This thread is FANTASTIC!!! Can we start making a numbered list so that high schoolers don’t have to read through a hundred pages? I’ve compiled a list below from what I’ve read, just copy and paste the list and add any of your own mistakes that haven’t been already mentioned</p>
<p>1.Joining too many clubs, even if I had little interest in them. I ended up having quantity and little depth of quality. I also dropped most of them junior year.
2.I didn’t pay attention in math for the first few days and ended up falling irretrievably behind.
3.I would’ve gotten all my SAT testing over with - at least for the first time - by June.
4.My biggest mistake would be that I don’t start thinking about university (as well as SAT and all those tests) until the end of junior year.
5.Another one would be that I only applied to my match schools because I didn’t want to get rejected letters.
6.I’ve never played a sport other than in PE classes.
7.Not caring about grades until it was too late. I was satisfied with the grades I got because I felt that they were high enough given the amount of effort I put in, which was absolute zero.
8.I’m a junior but I do regret slacking off my first semester of freshman year, and not applying for more scholarships.
9.Not knowing the PSAT was also the NMSQT
10. Not really looking into colleges until nearly the end of Junior year
11. Not studying for the SAT
12. Not buffing up on ACT math
13.Not taking any SAT II’s
14.Mistakes? Freshman year. Not putting myself out there in terms of ECs, internship opportunities, etc. I just wasn’t aware of what kinds of things you could do as a high school student and how much ECs affected admissions.
15.That said, the mistake I’m really kicking myself for now (since admissions turned out okay, despite everything [grin]) is not applying to more financially generous T20s.
16. Probably not volunteering enough.
Remember though there’s more to high school than college prep.
17. I should have kept on playing viola as much as I did in Soph. year. I probably could have submitted audio if I had kept practicing and gotten better. Now I have to describe viola as something I “just do for fun.”
18.Getting all A’s, A+'s etc. first two quarters of sophomore year, only to get straight B’s at the end.
19.Taking regular foreign language instead of honors.
20.not</p>
<p>having</p>
<p>enough</p>
<p>fun</p>
<p>…seriously.
21. Slacking off first semester senior year because I thought I would get into my ED school.
22.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.
23.Not realizing that being first generation would make the college search process EXTREMELY difficult.
24.Not taking up research, internship opportunities
25.Not knowing how to dress/put makeup on well freshman year!
26. Being akward. Still a problem.
27.Taking AP World History
28. Not taking physics or caring about calculus
29.Not taking more than two APs senior year!
30.Doing absolutely nothing during my summers, minus marching band.
31.1. Waiting until sophomore year to take a foreign language
32. 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)
33. 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.
34.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.
35. 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…
36. 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.
37. Not realizing until after the college process, that life isn’t all about getting into a great college, but to just do the things I love and have fun.</p>
<p>I really hope this format will help future high schoolers scan the list quickly! I looked through most posts, and many were repeats so this continued list will help cut those out.</p>
<p>@HonorsCentaur: A-'s aren’t good enough because I didn’t get into my first choice college as a result of my A- average.</p>
<p>Wow great idea. Yes lets update the list as we go. Thanks.</p>
<p>I didn’t know high schools differentiated between A-'s and A’s…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s definitely not true!! People with A- averages get into HYPMS ALL the time!! That type of advice, will just make a high schooler even more nervous and pressured. To say that you got rejected because of an A- average is absurd. Schools don’t disclose the reasons a student was denied admissions. </p>
<p>@aryus, I heard that some colleges consider As and A-s the same but others don’t</p>
<p>My biggest mistake was being an asian male. Oh wait, I can’t do anything about that. So why are colleges punishing us then?</p>
<p>I think my biggest mistakes were:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Scrambling to get my mandatory volunteer hours in before the early deadline. I realized that yes, I really could get scholarships from doing a lot of volunteering, and that I really enjoyed it in the end.</p></li>
<li><p>Not caring about my grades until senior year. Yes, in Ontario you get into university by the average of your top six 4U courses, but uh that actually takes work. Work is such a foreign concept to me. </p></li>
<li><p>Not getting involved in just <em>one</em> activity such as Reach for the Top or Relay for Life. (I still plan to participate in Relay for Life this May but I wish I’d gotten involved in it starting a few years ago)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>@Collegestress: I am well aware that a well-hooked applicant can get into HYPMS with an A- average. However, in my particular case, I was deferred (not rejected, but it’s coming) because my GPA was not good enough. My admissions counselor contacted the regional representative at the college I applied to and he stated as much. Please do not pretend to know why I did or did not get into college.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>not doing work. the difference between an A and a B (for someone like me) doesnt come from being smart or stupid. I was jsut as smart as the A kids, but didnt do the work/give a c**p. i got the B and they got an A + full ride/scholarship to flagship U. i didnt realize just how numbers-based undergrad admission is (despite what they say about holistic review…)</p></li>
<li><p>not doing what i was interested in. i cared too much about what was on my college resume, not what i cared about. i spent countless hours doing community service things i didnt care about. if i had the chance, i would have done some other community services i really do like (habitat for humanity… i get to work with power tools!).
plus, i always wanted to learn to do so many things- surf, cook, play an instrument. even if i gave a damn about school, i would have had lots of free time (and dropped the ECs i didnt care about). even if it didnt help my resume, i would have been a much happier person.</p></li>
<li><p>realize that the difference between 4 AP and 6 AP classes in a year doesnt matter that much to the adcoms. but its a sizable amount more work.</p></li>
<li><p>left high school early. i wish i had. </p></li>
<li><p>i always spend the summer taking classes at a JC. i could have been doing something i loved or doing research at nearby prestigious research uni. </p></li>
<li><p>i was in XC and track in high school. i loved track, kinda hated XC. but it was the same coach and group of kids. if i had balls, i would have only showed up for track and spent my XC days doing something i cared about (esp those XC practices in the summer at like 6 am)</p></li>
<li><p>get my license to drive at the earliest time- all the things i wanted to do require that i have a license (pub transportation kinda sucks in the suburb where i live). i waited over a year to get my license and was stuck doing stuff in the school</p></li>
<li><p>this relates to number 2, but doing stuff outside of school. i dont mean ECs, i mean things not done through my school/friends whatever.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>@drought: so in your HS, your report cards had either A-'s, A, and A+'s?</p>
<p>My school has no A+'s. As for my personal report cards, I got mostly A-'s, some A’s, a smattering of B+'s and the occasional B. Good for a 3.67 GPA.</p>
<p>I’m only a junior, but I know mine:</p>
<p>-before I found this forum, I was wayyyyyyyyy too complacent with being one of the top students in my school. Coming here is a real wake-up call simply because you realize how many other students out there are just as smart as, or smarter than, you are. CC really puts things into perspective & I wish I had found it 2 years ago.
-not cracking a book for the PSAT. As a result, I think I’m going to miss the cutoff score for semifinalist by 1 or 2 points.
-quitting the 2 sports that were my main ECs. Sure, it would have taken me about 9 months of serious rehab to play again, and I’m involved in other things, but I worry now that it’ll look bad that I didn’t continue.
-being absolutely awful with deadlines. Scholastic is just one thing I’ve missed because I put it off too long. College apps are going to be horrible if I don’t get my act together</p>
<p>Oh well, at least I’m still enjoying myself :p</p>
<p>@ Drought, I’m not pretending to know why you did or did not get accepted. But to blame your deferral on a A- average is pretty lame, of course I don’t know what school you’re talking about but many applicants to Yale SCEA had perfect everything and still got deferred. </p>
<p>All I’m trying to say is that your comment will make frenzied middle schoolers nervous when they think an A- isn’t good enough.</p>
<p>For those who didn’t read my earlier post:</p>
<p>This thread is FANTASTIC!!! Can we start making a numbered list so that high schoolers don’t have to read through a hundred pages? I’ve compiled a list below from what I’ve read, just copy and paste the list and add any of your own mistakes that haven’t been already mentioned</p>
<p>1.Joining too many clubs, even if I had little interest in them. I ended up having quantity and little depth of quality. I also dropped most of them junior year.
2.I didn’t pay attention in math for the first few days and ended up falling irretrievably behind.
3.I would’ve gotten all my SAT testing over with - at least for the first time - by June.
4.My biggest mistake would be that I don’t start thinking about university (as well as SAT and all those tests) until the end of junior year.
5.Another one would be that I only applied to my match schools because I didn’t want to get rejected letters.
6.I’ve never played a sport other than in PE classes.
7.Not caring about grades until it was too late. I was satisfied with the grades I got because I felt that they were high enough given the amount of effort I put in, which was absolute zero.
8.I’m a junior but I do regret slacking off my first semester of freshman year, and not applying for more scholarships.
9.Not knowing the PSAT was also the NMSQT
10. Not really looking into colleges until nearly the end of Junior year
11. Not studying for the SAT
12. Not buffing up on ACT math
13.Not taking any SAT II’s
14.Mistakes? Freshman year. Not putting myself out there in terms of ECs, internship opportunities, etc. I just wasn’t aware of what kinds of things you could do as a high school student and how much ECs affected admissions.
15.That said, the mistake I’m really kicking myself for now (since admissions turned out okay, despite everything [grin]) is not applying to more financially generous T20s.
16. Probably not volunteering enough.
Remember though there’s more to high school than college prep.
17. I should have kept on playing viola as much as I did in Soph. year. I probably could have submitted audio if I had kept practicing and gotten better. Now I have to describe viola as something I “just do for fun.”
18.Getting all A’s, A+'s etc. first two quarters of sophomore year, only to get straight B’s at the end.
19.Taking regular foreign language instead of honors.
20.not</p>
<p>having</p>
<p>enough</p>
<p>fun</p>
<p>…seriously.
21. Slacking off first semester senior year because I thought I would get into my ED school.
22.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.
23.Not realizing that being first generation would make the college search process EXTREMELY difficult.
24.Not taking up research, internship opportunities
25.Not knowing how to dress/put makeup on well freshman year!
26. Being akward. Still a problem.
27.Taking AP World History
28. Not taking physics or caring about calculus
29.Not taking more than two APs senior year!
30.Doing absolutely nothing during my summers, minus marching band.
31.1. Waiting until sophomore year to take a foreign language
32. 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)
33. 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.
34.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.
35. 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…
36. 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.
37. Not realizing until after the college process, that life isn’t all about getting into a great college, but to just do the things I love and have fun.</p>
<p>I really hope this format will help future high schoolers scan the list quickly! I looked through most posts, and many were repeats so this continued list will help cut those out.</p>
<p>This thread is making me depressed. -_-</p>
<p>@Collegestress: I am not trying to freak out any middle schoolers. I am merely stating what I regret about my high school experience. Also, I’m confused as to how blaming my deferral on my GPA is “lame.”</p>
<p>Waiting until October, November and December to take my SAT and ACT tests. I actually began taking them early in my junior year, but I didn’t pay attention to the types and formats of questions until summer of my junior year.</p>
<p>So prepare for the tests (optional) and take them early!</p>