I’m a freshman in high school and was hoping for some advice on what I should do in the next four years and if I’m on ther right track to get into my dream schools. This is probably not typical for this forum, but I want to get a head start so I’m not worrying later on about all the things I should have done
I have a 4 Honors classes and a 4.02 GPA (it’s low, but I can’t take any APs right now, next year I can). I think what really defines me are the things I do outside of school (and also my strong work ethic and drive). AP courses I plan to take: AP World History, AP Calculus AB, AP US History, AP English, AP Statistics, AP Economics, AP US Gov & Politics. I haven’t taken the SAT/ACT tests yet, but I scored in the 99th percentile in Quant. Reasoning and in the 95th percentile in Verbal Reasoning on the SCAT testing.
My college/career goals: Either a human rights lawyer or some career in public policy and advocacy.
Musical theatre (3-5 hours/week plus a 50+ hour tech week)
Music (ukelele, guitar, piano, singing) Recorded four songs in a studio: two singles and two collaborative songs.
Journalism (4 hours/week)
Youth City Council, working on a program for homeless/socioeconomically disadvantaged youth to have access to counseling and academic support at their schools.
Enrolled in a college course (10 hours/week) in visual communications
Marketing, social media, volunteer coordination for refugee nonprofit (current, 25 hours/month)
Summer camp counselor for homeless children (4 weeks, 30 hours/week) and evening volunteer
Jobs/Work Experience
Paid journalist ($100/article)
Applied for several internships this summer (public policy, journalism, advocacy) and have heard back from almost all saying they were very impressed with my writing samples and resume, and I now have interviews this month and next.
Schools: Stanford (legacy), Harvard (reach), UC Berkeley, University of Michigan, NYU, UCLA, Amherst College, Williams College, Columbia University
So, what I’d love to know is if I’m currently on the right track as a freshman and also if there are any specific things I can do that would boost my applications (that I can do sophomore, junior year or in the summer) that are relevant to my interests. I’m not really big on anything STEM-related, except, I guess, psychology. But I’m hoping the things I am doing now will set the foundation and allow me to aim higher in the next couple of years!
I think you’re doing a lot as a freshman. More than almost every kid I know. I also think you’re getting ahead of yourself. High school isn’t just a preparation step for college. It’s not a machine you work through. It’s four years of your life that you’re supposed to explore and enjoy as well. Make sure you’re making time to spend with friends and relaxing as well. It might also be a tad early to be formulating a college list. You don’t even have one full year to base statistics off of, and schools you might be attracted to now you might no longer be in three years time. Sometimes kids don’t even like the schools they EDed at by the end of senior year, and that’s a span of less than a year! Definitely work hard in high school, but don’t think of it as just a means to an end. Make the most of the experience as well. Good luck.
I completely agree, and thank you so much for that advice. Because most of my extracurriculars are flexible and on my own time, I spend a lot of time on the weekends doing fun stuff with my family and friends. At the private school I go to, people are usually so busy with homework and extracurriculars that no one really has the time to hang out, so I try to make friends with a lot of the new people I meet through the activities I do. And, yes, I’m sure my specific college choices will change, I just want to aim high so I don’t slack off in high school Thanks again!
Don’t have a dream school. Have a dream life. The college you attend will be a stepping stone toward the dream life, but the dream life is what’s in your control. I don’t think you should be doing anything with an eye toward college admissions except doing well in school. Everything else extracurricular, do only what you want to do, and sample different things. This will allow you to grow into the individual that you want to be instead of being molded into the canonical driven ivy league student. Being happy is learned behavior. Learn how to be happy. If your can’t learn how to be happy in high school when do you expect to learn that.
Basically, sometime during Junior year, you will have “statistics”. You will do your best and those stats will be what they will be and you will have no regrets or feelings of inadequacy or anxiety. It’s all good. At that point you will look at colleges and make a realistic list of schools that you think will carry you on that journey to that dream life. You will include at least 2 safeties so that you have to make an affirmative decision to attend your college and leave another college disappointed that they didn’t get you. You are the prize, not the college. Have a little swagger, have some fun and get enough sleep.
Sleep deprivation is the biggest downfall of high school students because your developing brain needs enough sleep to allow you to learn. Deprive your brain of sleep and it’s harder to learn which makes assignments take more time which cause you to lose more sleep - vicious downward spiral. Don’t let this be you.
What I guess wasn’t clear is that all of my extracurriculars are things that I truly love doing and it brings me a lot of fulfillment to know I’ve made a difference - so that would be my dream life, one where I could help people.
I’ve really been prioritizing my personal health, by meditating and doing yoga. I read every day and paint before I go to bed if I’m feeling stressed about something. So I think as long as I keep that mindset and lifestyle up I’ll save my sanity for the next couple years
My dream schools are just the schools that I researched and found had mission statements that most aligned with my personal values and went on my vision board. Those are, of course, going to change.
I just really want to (gently) push myself to reach my full potential as a student and also want to make as much of an impact as I can before I even graduate high school.
Don’t ever fall into the habit of procrastinating. It’s a vicious cycle impossible to get out of.
Surround yourself with friends that are as driven as you are.
DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT tailor any of your activities or what you do for a line on a college application. Do things because you actually enjoy them.
Work hard, but don’t think about college right now.
Join clubs that travel and/or do competitions. This can earn you free trips to awesome places you may have otherwise not gone to (i.e. I went to San Diego for a week thanks to FCCLA).
Hi, thanks for your advice! Yeah, I definitely have not been doing things just to look good on college apps, for example I’m not planning on taking AP bio and chemistry in 10th/11th because those would require a long summer course, which would not allow me to do the volunteer work and other activities that tie in with my interests. Moreover, I’m not interested in those courses anyway so I’m taking honors instead. Thanks for all the specific advice on things I can do!
Only advice I have is to find one thing that you really care about, and focus all of your extracurricular efforts on it. Don’t join 30 clubs - do one thing and do it well and deeply.
While its nice to have an eye on college admissions down the road, more important IMHO is to use these years to do things for yourself and your benefit. So here’s what I wish someone had told me when I was 14.
There’s a saying that the last thing you expect a fish to discover is water, so your day-to-day life probably seems routine and unremarkable. Yet this is the last time in your life you’ll see your parents & siblings on a daily basis. Right now it may feel like that’s too much, but once its over its going to be over forever. So make an effort to enjoy some time with them these next few years. The memories & bonds you make today are going be be a big part of the glue holding you together. Similarly make time for your friends.
As for school, if you take care of the learning then the grades tend to take care of themselves. Colleges really look for students with an inner love of learning. Its a funny thing that in your 12 years of schooling thru HS graduation, you’ll probably never get even an hour’s instruction in how to learn; its just what to learn. There’s a book I highly recommend called Make it Stick that discusses the current research in how to learn. If things like distributed practice and self-testing aren’t part of your vocabulary now they ought to be, and this book has plenty of tips for HS and college students on how to study effectively.
BTW you are not limited to the teachers in your school; I hate seeing kids whine in the forum “I had a bad teacher” to try to excuse a bad grade. There have long been workbooks and other resources out there, and in just the past 5 years or so programs like iTunesU & Khan Academy have opened up avenues that were once unthinkable. You can watch some of the best profs in the country lecture on almost any subject under the sun, including ones overlapping what you’re learning in school. And this applies even if your teachers are good; watch some of these series to supplement what you’re getting in class.
Sounds like you’re right on track, albeit a tad early.
My advice to you would be geared toward your school search, rather than your EC’s. Since you’ve got plenty of time, be sure to research and seek out schools that fit the reach/match/safe categories. On your current target list, you’ve only got reaches. Although your stats are wonderful, who knows what could happen in the next couple of years.
Build your list from the ground up. You only need one academic safe school and one financial safe school. It’s great if that’s the same school, but it isn’t always. If you become a frequenter of this site, you’ll hear a consistent refrain, “Love your safety.” Try to take it to heart.
mikemac, really helpful advice! I’ve been studying the MIT Open Courseware in humanities/social sciences courses, which aren’t necessarily part of my regular curriculum (I do use Khan Academy and online practice tests for that). Instead of wasting time on distractions like aimlessly browsing through social media, I’ve started looking at the 5-10 page research paper prompts and tests that the MIT courses use and doing those. I find it really fun to explore an area I’m interested in, and it’s a fulfilling spend of my free time.
Thanks so much for all the resources, I learned a lot and will print them out for future reference.
@citymama9 it’s a course at the Academy of Art University in SF, they have precollege scholarships (so I’m taking the course at no cost). The program is unlike a regular course and all the modules are online, so I complete graphic design projects and quizzes.
@hop Thanks of bringing that up. Yes, I agree that those schools are mostly reaches and some matches. My safeties would be Sarah Lawrence or Smith College
^^^You cannot possibly define your safety schools with less than one year of a GPA in hand and no standardized tests. Come back early in your junior year.
For clarity, a safety school would be one that you’re sure that would 99.5% accept you.
If you’re in San Francisco, that would probably be SFSU, because of their regional area preference.
BUT, if you would never even consider attending SFSU, then you need to keep searching for another safety.
A match school is one where your particular stats - GPA and test scores - reside solidly within a schools’ historic middle 50% of admitted students. A match is a school that would likely to admit students with your profile, and likely have more an 30% admit rate overall.
Remember that at many schools it may seem as if according to their stats, you should be a match, but they may in fact really be reaches. Often the sheer volume of applications received can put a school in the reach range, as well as their admit rates. By definition, a reach is one where the admit rate is below 20%. The highly selective schools, such as Stanford, have admit rates in the single digits. But even those single digit numbers are deceptively high when you factor in the balance for gender, athletes and large donors.
All of these definitions can vary by school, by region and by a wide variety of other factors that may or may not already be in play for this years class.
No problem with keeping certain schools in mind, even this early, as long as you don’t lose sight of the balance that will be needed when it comes time for you to actually apply.
@happy1, I’m not really able to determine anything with no SATs and only part of my freshman year GPA. But I’m not trying to determine what colleges I can get into; this is all just brainstorming and I can easily add or remove to my list by junior year.
@hop, Thank you. This is probably the most helpful advice I could have right now. Smith College has a 38% acceptance rate (which I now realize is low for a safety) and Sarah Lawrence has a 53% acceptance rate, so I suppose that would be more of a solid safety. Thanks for explaining everything so well!
I don’t want to be rude, but IMO at this point it is just spinning your wheels. You will have plenty of time to brainstorm and come up with a meaningful list of schools when the time is right and you have enough information.
@happy1, I totally understand what you’re saying. In my opinion, there are two ways “spinning my wheels” could be a bad thing. The first would be if I was so obsessed with college searching that it distracted me from studying and school, and the second would be if I was extrinsically motivated (to do well in school or participate in EC’s) by the promise of getting into a good college/Ivy League. However, neither of the above is the case So I think it’s fine that I’ve put some thought into it. I was just hoping to get some feedback and advice from other students/people who have had experience with the process for these next four years so that I can really set a solid foundation for the remainder of high school
I do think it is a good thing that you understand college will be in your future and that you are motivated to do well in and out of the classroom. However, when it comes to spending time trying to target specific schools as a freshman I would say: 1) it is best to see how things evolve over the next couple of years – give yourself room to see where your interests and aptitudes take you 2) rather than focus on a few LACs, give yourself room to change what type of college you may want to attend as you continue to evolve and grow as a person and 3) as a freshman your time is better spent with family, friends, or a good book as compared to being on CC.
That’s just my opinion, of course you are free to do as you wish.
