Dear young ones,

Pre-College Issues High School Life
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<p>Ok, so maybe I'm still young too. I'm a rising senior and I'm writing this to the rising 8th/freshmen/sophomores/juniors who are all on this forum.</p>

<p>I have recently started looking at the prompts for college essays and thinking about what I did in high school, and it has made me realize I have really enjoyed it.</p>

<p>My freshman year of high school, I was always on this website. I thought I needed to be president of 400 clubs and take 6000 APs and I HAD to find a science fair or I would never get into college. All I focused on was being the "ideal CC student".</p>

<p>The summer after my freshman year I read Applying</a> Sideways | MIT Admissions and it inspired me.</p>

<p>My sophomore and junior years I found my passions (field hockey, growing plants, teaching math, making fun of teachers (who often reciprocate), telling stories of the ridiculous things that happen to me, etc.) and immersed myself in them. And looking back, I had tons and tons of fun those two years. I did not my freshman year. I was down in the dumps most of the time. It sucked. </p>

<p>So now thanks to these past two years, I am entering the college admissions process a lot less nervous than I think I would have been otherwise. Every essay prompt I've read so far I think "Oh, I know exactly what to write!" and it's me and it's real. </p>

<p>I guess what I'm trying to say to all you "young ones" is to just do you. Do whatever you want in high school, and sometime during the college admissions process, you may start to feel things fall together too.</p>

<p>The best part is, even if I don't get into the <em>Dream School</em>, I have had a lot of fun in high school, and I still have a year left to have a lot of fun. I think I'd be a lot more nervous if I had put all my energy into COLLEGE and nothing else. </p>

<p>So please, just enjoy being a middle schooler/freshman/sophomore/junior while you still can. Ok?</p>

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<p>K.
10char</p>

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<p>You’re young too.</p>

<p>Enjoy it.</p>

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<p>I read it. And it helped a lot. So now I can go back to worrying because I worry that I don’t worry enough.</p>

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<p>I wish I had real passions. Then I might not procrastinate so much.
(This is sort of off-topic, but “enjoy your youth while it lasts” advice always scares me. That’s a lot of pressure. How long until it’s gone? I’m only seventeen years old and I already feel like I’ve wasted a lot of my life.)</p>

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<p>@halcyonheather I used to have nightmares about the future. It helps sometimes to let someone else know that there’s someone out there who has the same fears, you know? Everything will be fine.</p>

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<p>Same here. Although I’m only 15.</p>

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<p>I was actually kind of the opposite. </p>

<p>I’m a rising junior right now, but in my freshman year, I was not into the “valedictorian” thing at all. I got C’s and D’s all over the place, and the only class where I never made the teacher disappointed was math (which is surprising, considering that I disliked math my whole life).</p>

<p>My mom knocked some sense into me during the summer before I started 10th grade, so I tried to improve. The end result: 3.2 GPA transforms to a 3.8. I was pretty surprised at my effort, so looking on the brighter side, I’m trying to get an even better GPA this school year.</p>

<p>I feel that having this awkward upward trend will somehow help me in my college apps, so I’ll try to enjoy high school as much as possible at the same time by including my passions and hobbies. Thanks for the advice.</p>