<p>Hello, I am 14 and have been thinking about college recently. I realize that it may be too early to think about this. I get straight A's and occasionally B's. Last year my average GPA was a 3.9. I scored Advanced on my state tests and I am in the highest classes possible for 8th Grade (Algebra 1, Gifted English and Literature). What I know so far: I need around a 4.0 in HS, good SAT and ACT scores, some community services, and a passion. My passion is Soccer, but I don't know if that's good enough.</p>
<p>I need some advice on where to get started or a sequence I can go by. I might do some things for the Red Cross. I also play Basketball, but I am better at Soccer.</p>
<p>I know it probably won't happen, but I hope to get into Harvard and will do whatever it takes. If not I'll probably apply for a couple Ivy's and a local college.
Also one of the variables that might affect college may be what school I go to. Does it matter what prestige my High School is? Because I go to a fairly small school, although it has been rated excellent for like 4 years straight.</p>
<p>Harvard, and all selective colleges, want students who follow their own passions, not students whose passion is getting into an Ivy League School. There is only one formula or sequence that you need to follow: do what you love and the rest will follow! So, please don’t take this the wrong way, but as your 14, you honestly need to forget about College Confidential AND college admissions for the next three years. Continue doing well in school; keep playing soccer and basketball. If volunteering at the Red Cross is something that really interests you, do it. When you get to high school, join a few (1-3) clubs that interest you. If you do what you love, and work hard in school, when you come back to College Confidential in three years, you will have what it takes to succeed in the college applications process. Now, go be a kid and have fun!</p>
<p>Do high school so that you’ll be satisfied with your years there whether your admissions results turn out the way you want them to or not. You want to be at the point where a rejection from your top choice college makes you go neither “I wish I had tried harder!” nor “…what was all that effort for, then?” If you can do that, you’ll be in the ideal place whatever college you end up choosing.</p>
<p>Yes, but you want to have the high school experience you’re satisfied with even if you don’t get admitted to any of the colleges with <10% admit rates. The rejection scenario enables me to talk about the middle path. Sometimes when I’m giving that same advice I do the “you decide to take a gap year before applying to college and in the September of your gap year before you apply to colleges you look back over your experience and you want to have been satisfied with it without your satisfaction being conditional on how your college admissions turn out in March,” but that’s significantly more convoluted. Point is: maximize high school experience so that in hindsight you will be happy with how you did it independent of admissions results.</p>
<p>“to have the high school experience you’re satisfied with even if you don’t get admitted to any of the colleges with <10% admit rates”
If there be a dichotomy between that and admission to said colleges, I’d go the latter option. Basically, there are some people, myself included, to an extent, who value increasing college admission chances above maximising high school experience.</p>
<p>That’s why I said “satisfying” not “of maximum fun” and that’s why I said one of the two main regrets to avoid is “I wish I had tried harder!” </p>
<p>Spending years in high school miserable to increase your personal chance at acceptance from 9% to 15% is a waste because it’s still such long odds. The only thing I am arguing against there, however, is the “miserable” part. Whether or not you’ll regret doing something to increase your chances if the lottery does not fall in your favor seems to be a useful line between what’s still worth doing and what isn’t.</p>
<p>Hmm, sorry, I think I’ve been a little muddle-headed.</p>
<p>“You want to be at the point where a rejection from your top choice college makes you go neither “I wish I had tried harder!” nor “…what was all that effort for, then?””</p>
<p>I’d agree with that, but it’s very much an “easy to say, difficult to do” sort of thing, kinda like the whole Aristotelian golden mean - who knows where it is? Essentially, what I’d suggest is that you err on the side of avoiding the former rather than the latter, viz. on the side of caution.</p>