I’m entering my freshman year of HS in the Fall, and I’ve started to read some college threads out of curiosity.
I keep seeing threads talking about the college application process and how you need to take the hardest APs and have a million internships in order to get into a ‘good’ school. I feel like I’m expected to have ECs /classes/awards that align with whatever major I’ll end up pursuing, from the very beginning of my HS career.
I was thinking that 9th grade could be a time where I could experiment with ECs/classes to figure out what I really enjoy.
I thought that was ok, but people making it sound like I’ll get rejected from every college I apply to if my application doesn’t ‘make sense’ from 9th-12th grade.
This is NOT true! There’s a lot of “toxic” posts on here along the lines of “if I don’t get a 4.0 and a 1600 SAT and cure cancer can I get into my local state school?!”
High school is the time to explore! Join the clubs you want! Take classes you want! As long as you take the 5 “core” classes (math, english, social studies, science, foreign language) and get good grades you’ll be fine.
Obviously, if you’re looking at T20, it’ll be a lot better if you have a consistency within your 4 years, but its not required.
9th and 10th grade, you explore, you drop some, try some others, find your groove, change your mind, etc. By the end of 10th grade, you should have a couple things that you really enjoy and/or are good at. It can be anything - in or out of school: yearbook, theater tech, a sport, fixing computers and IT problems, photography, volunteering at a nursing home, a landscaping job.
11th grade is when you choose and try to have some responsibilities in the couple activities you’ve identified as being “your thing”.
12th grade, you’re a senior. Be a leader in what you chose.
So, for now: explore and enjoy!
Do what you enjoy, and you will shine in it. My daughter had no idea what she wanted to do when she entered freshman year. She had two - yes, just two! - ECs, but she loved them, did them for all four years of high school, got leadership positions and awards (which is easier when you really enjoy what you’re doing), and got into a T30 college, even though they didn’t really have anything to do with her intended major.
As for classes - challenge yourself, but don’t kill yourself studying. You should be able to figure out for yourself where that middle ground should be.
Above all, please don’t be the kid (and we’ve sadly seen a few here) posting at the end of their high school career that they burnt themselves out studying and doing all these fabulous ECs and still didn’t get into an Ivy/X tier college so it was all “a waste of time”. (There was also the student who did get into an Ivy but was so burnt out by that stage that she didn’t want to attend it.) That’s why I say - enjoy your high school years. Yes, keep an eye on college applications so challenge yourself and look for opportunities, but please don’t make it all about college - make it about you and getting the most out of high school.
Do what you love!! And take time to experiment with everything that sounds remotely interesting.
I’m pursuing architecture in college, but in high school I participated in clubs that have very little to do with architecture. Choose things that you’re passionate about!
Colleges like to see commitment, and it is quite difficult to commit to something you don’t enjoy.
I understand where you are coming from. My older daughter was focused from the word go. She will have an application that tells a story from 9th - 12th. The thing is though, it just worked out that way. She did things when she was much younger that she could not have predicted would take her to where she is now. If she had tried to plan things this way it wouldn’t have worked. It was all organic.
My younger daughter, a year older than you, has many interests and is kind of all over the place. She has two ECs she shares with her older sister, but her academic interests are different. She is not sure what she wants to pursue, and she doesn’t have one solid focus. She looks at her sister and thinks she’s behind. I tell her she is not. I expect she’ll focus down on one thing that lights her fire at some point next year…and if she doesn’t, then she’ll keep doing the two ECs she loves and will take those even deeper. One thing I know won’t work for her though is if she forces herself into a project that she doesn’t really like just because she thinks she is supposed to do something. That would take time and energy away from her exploring and then maybe discovering what she really and truly loves. Your post reminds me of my younger daughter, so I will say the same thing to you that I do to her – you are just fine. Explore now. Join things. Do things both inside and outside your school system, and see what you truly enjoy. Follow paths and see where they take you.
