<p>My biggest mistake was relaxing my hair in the 9th grade as a bow to peer pressure, then deciding in the 12th grade that I couldn’t take it anymore and would grow my hair out. To all you young females who are contemplating this decision, I have one word for you: braids. Put your hair in braids and save yourself the grief of having your hair brutally reduced to 1 inch. Trust me, it’s worth the money. :/</p>
<p>I regret:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Not reading the scholarship offer pages of some of my schools and noticing that some of them offered scholarships to NAF. Read the financial aid pages, guys! :mad:</p></li>
<li><p>Not asking my parents about their marital status before I filled in my college applications. You never know when your parents are divorced. ASK.</p></li>
<li><p>Not searching for more colleges I might have been compatible for.</p></li>
<li><p>Not studying for my PSAT and SAT…it would’ve been worth the sacrifice of an hour a week.</p></li>
<li><p>Cutting off my hair in a mad frenzy.</p></li>
<li><p>Dropping my electrical engineering course. It murdered my GPA, but that’s besides the point–there’s something inspiring about a teacher who mercilessly fails you. :D</p></li>
<li><p>Not finding this website sooner. I mean, it’s been said before, but who hasn’t approached school differently after being on CC?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Spending a lot of time over the four years worrying if I could get into a good school. I also wish I set aside more time for fun my freshman/sophomore years (worked way too hard those two years). Also, I wish I got more involved in playing sports and in the school’s theater productions.</p>
<p>-Not giving my all academic wise. My grades could have been so much better. I was often so close to that A, but never gave it my 100%, even though i told myself i did. </p>
<p>-Although i have some great ECs, i wish i had pursued these sooner, which would have allowed myself to become more distinguished and obtain higher leadership roles. Plus, i missed out on some fun too!</p>
<p>You should either be working and doing something productive, or having a blast. Video games are definitely not working/productive but are really just a time killer, you can always have more fun doing something else.</p>
<p>If I had never done them, grades would’ve been higher and I would’ve had more fun.</p>
<p>As a senior this year there are many things I regret.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I should’ve pushed myself more freshman year.</p></li>
<li><p>Tried applying to more scholarships. I didn’t think 1,000 would make a difference… I do now.</p></li>
<li><p>Instead of randomly filling in bubbles for the SATs, I should’ve studied.</p></li>
<li><p>Tried harder this year and freshman year. I could’ve been top ten of my class instead of number fifteen.</p></li>
<li><p>Taken AP Bio my 9th grade year instead of Earth Science.</p></li>
<li><p>Lastly, never let personal relationships affect your GPA.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Overall, I regret many things but I still got into my number one choice university. So for the most part everything turned out fine. As of now, I am trying to pass on this knowledge to others and my younger sister who will be entering high school next year.</p>
<p>not taking the PSATs! no one at my school explained to me that they were used to qualify for scholarships… i thought that it was just practice for the SATs, so i thought “why pay for a whole different test when i could just take a REAL practice SAT for free…” yeah, mistake. i probably could have made nmsf. really kicking myself for that one.</p>
<p>1.) Missing the opportunity to grow socially. Being a hard-nosed academic pays off college-wise, but it’s just as important to enjoy your life.
2.) Waiting until the last minute to write college essays. I’m a good writer. My essays suck. Seriously, start them early. Do rough drafts and revisions. Don’t start them 2 days before your app is due. Please.</p>
<p>For one marking period I was dating this girl and didn’t even care about school. Let’s just say I removed that girl from my life when I brought home a 1.667 on my report card.</p>
<p>I think my biggest mistake was not getting involved enough. I was and still am very shy, and in high school I was just too scared to get involved with things like clubs. I participated in a sport outside of high school, but I still could have had time to do an activity or two in school. Kids at my high school weren’t exactly clique-ish, but you had to dress and sort of act a certain way to fit in. So basically, just go and do something. Even if you don’t think you’ll like it, try it cause you never know until you do. I know this doesn’t have much to do with admissions, but it has everything to do with the high school experience.</p>
<p>Freshman and sophomore years… Freshman year, I flat out didn’t give a crap about potential colleges that I might have wanted to attend. All I did in school was screw around and make fun of the teachers. Finished with a 3.1 gpa. Sophomore year I was trying to change and finished with a 3.7 gpa. Grades were great junior and 1st semester senior year… but I ruined my chances at getting into better colleges. Get your mind set on future schools and possible careers right from the start; don’t wait like I did, because I’m still unsure about what I want to major in.</p>
<p>It’s funny how, when a frosh comes on and says “what can I do to prepare for TOP colleges”…they’re frequently greeted with answers like “you’re a freshman…just have fun, be a kid”. Either the responders aren’t aware of what it takes to get into a top 10 school…or they want the OP to fail. It takes a lot of planning & dedication, and that has to start early. Example: If your school has an IB programme…you typically have to gear your schedule toward it starting in the 9th grade. My daughter had to start APs in 9th grade. Once you’ve passed any of these landmarks…it’s difficult or impossible to go back and change/make things better - IF you’re talking top 10 schools. </p>
<p>So… I guess I’d say the biggest mistake(s) my daughter made was in not figuring out a major early enough. Though that can work for some if their major is closely related…it can really screw up your plans if they’re worlds apart. My own D wanted to major in music. So we switched her to another high school, and she gave “it all” to performing arts. 20 plus hours a week. Her grades suffered in what would normally be considered a very small way. BUT…she WAS top 5 ish kids in a large school academically…and ONE BAD SEMESTER dropped her to barely in the top 10th percentile! By “bad”, I mean one C+ and some Bs. </p>
<p>She then decided she did want to pursue an academic track, and had her sights set high. She has all the test scores to qualify her. BUT…though she’s back on track with As and a 3.9 now (4.9 weighted)…but her GPA plunge has proven to be unrecoverable. So she’ll never achieve what she now hopes for…because of this “switch” in goals.</p>
<p>Of course most people don’t know what they want, so it’s hard. It’s not that she did anything really wrong…it’s more tough luck. She ended up with state championships in her other areas. But those don’t hold water with top 10 schools when you’ve barely nudged yourself back into top 7th percentile. Our school (though large, good, competitive)…is public. Only 3-4 total admits each year to all Ivies combined. They take from the top 5-10 kids of course. </p>
<p>So - make plans IF YOU CAN to follow your goal/bliss. Because, NOW…AFTER applying to non-music schools…she’s waffling BACK!/!/! AAArrrggghh!</p>
<p>I stopped caring!
I was in every club and had straight a’s up until maybe halfway through my junior year.
After that, I’d settle for B’s and maybe one or two C+'s senior year.</p>
<p>-I took band for two years, which lowered my class rank because it was an unweighted elective.
-I never put any real effort into the college search.
-I didn’t study for the PSAT, and I never took the SAT I (to be honest, I partially blame my school for this. I didn’t realize how important the PSAT was, and my school didn’t push the SAT as much as the ACT (I’m from the Midwest), so I was just uneducated about things like this).
-I only decided to apply to some Ivys at the last minute, so I only had one shot at the SAT IIs.
-I never studied for the ACT. The first time I took it, it was just to gauge where I was at. Then I got the scores back and they were pretty good, but everyone said that most people’s scores go up just for taking it a second time, so the next two times I took it, I didn’t study because I assumed it would just go up naturally. (It didn’t, and in one case went down. Now I’ll always wonder how I would have done if I had actually PREPARED.)
-I didn’t do much volunteer work, and I didn’t have a year-round job. So those sections of my application were basically blank.
-I didn’t go for many leadership positions, and I wish I had.
-I didn’t self-study any APs or take any classes at the community college. At my school, people just didn’t do these things, and it wasn’t until I discovered CC that I realized that this was what tippy-top applicants did.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t count this as a mistake, exactly, but I was involved in 3 sports. They took up a lot of time, but I was never anywhere near good enough to play at a top school. So they didn’t really help my app in that regard, but they also prevented me from doing ECs the top schools probably would have preferred to have seen. If I had to do it over again I would do the same thing, because my sports experiences are too special to me for me to regret them, but at the same time, future students should be warned that too many sports, if you’re not at college-level, can take prevent you from doing the ECs some schools might favor more.</p>
<p>Overall, I wish I’d discovered CC sooner. By the standards of my school, I was a pretty solid applicant, but it wasn’t until I found CC that I realized I wasn’t that special. If I had found CC sooner, I know I could have been better.</p>
<p>Going to a hard private highschool. You work for a B-/B, while your friends at public schools are getting easy A’s. Your SAT’s are a little better, but in the end they still get into better colleges for half the work. Our education system is so messed up.</p>
<p>1) Falling off of perfection: gave up on perfect GPA after first crack of a B in HAlgII class and got B’s in all subsequent math and science classes.
1.5) Slacking off in aforementioned math and science classes on everything except AP tests. Not applying myself period after sophomore year, figured out I can spend 1/10 of time in a class to get a B instead of an A.
2) Not learning computer science, my school didn’t offer it but i could’ve went to community college like my dad did when i was in middle school. If i had this skill I could be landing a really powerful summer internship right now with a bank
3) Sticking with band instead of debate: aside from friends, and some leadership skills, band didn’t give me much. Debate would’ve given me 1 extra GPA point each year since it was “honors”. Plus, I wasn’t dedicated enough in Band to make all state (always off by 1 chair) so it didn’t help too much in college apps despite me writing common app essay on it.</p>