<p>First of all. I'm just a student in 8th grade.</p>
<p>I really want to get into a great university. Like Stanford, MIT, and the Ivies.</p>
<p>I really want to have more extra-curriculars in my profile when I graduate.
Currently I play an instrument and I'm in JV Basketball Team. I'm deciding on joining the student council. Besides that, I have no extra-curriculars. I really need help. I'm currently planning on joining a summer program this coming summer. </p>
<p>If you can please give me some other really good tips in what I can do. Also my grades are currently not that impressive. I have like 2 or 3 A's and a couple of B's. Could you like please tell me as much things as possible for an 8th grader like me make my list of extra-curriculars way bigger than I have now. I mean like huge.</p>
<p>Hi TallKid. This is probably not the answer you are looking for, but I do have some advice for you. You should spend the next 3 years leading up to the application process becoming an interesting and interested person. You should maintain your good grades, your school activities, etc. You should also find some things to pour your energies into things that are not organized and created by adults for kids to participate in. You should pay attention, and if you ever feel overwhelmed by how busy you are, or are finding some of your EC’s to be a drain on your time without being fun/interesting/challenging, you should know how to prune those activities out of your schedule. Have enough down time (time where you aren’t doing school work, sports, clubs, facebook, TV) that your mind can wander and wonder and develop opinions and questions about the world around you. Follow these opinions and questions into areas that aren’t the typical EC-that-high-school-kids-do-to-look-good-to-colleges. As hard as it may be to get what this means, get to know yourself and BE yourself. Don’t be shy about approaching people, groups, organizations that are in the world you are curious about. If you find yourself fascinated by something (pure bred dog shows, retention pond requirements around developed areas, why the heck is journalism so warped these days, shopping trends, home made guitars…), write emails to people in that world with questions about how to become involved, where to start developing expertise about the subject, etc.</p>
<p>If you spend the next few years doing this, you’ll have good grades, friends of all ages in your areas of interest, you will be an interesting and fulfilled person, you will have knowledge about something that most people don’t, you will have learned how to listen to your inner voice and follow where it takes you, you will know who you are and what environments you thrive in, you will have learned what it means to work for something other than a grade, you will have built fun memories, and you will be an interesting and aware person. And a byproduct of all that will be that you can identify what schools will offer you the academic opportunities and living environment that will be good for you, and you will probably be qualified for admission.</p>
<p>The most important thing for a rising freshman to remember is that the transcript is the single most important part of your application. ECs should (almost) always take a backseat to schoolwork.</p>
<p>A few tips:</p>
<p>-Take your SAT IIs as you finish the corresponding classes (except the languages–wait until as late as possible to take those).</p>
<p>-Take advantage of freshman year to join clubs just for the heck of it. Don’t feel an obligation to continue with them for the rest of high school–extracurriculars are just that, extra, and they should be fun. Remember, too, that extracurriculars need not be your typical high school clubs, sports, or instruments. Colleges are looking for a diverse class, but this does not mean that your resume needs to be diverse. Focus on being interesting and getting good at one or two things.</p>
<p>-Summers, whether you attend a summer program or not, are a great time to do ECs that the school year might not afford you the time to do. Whether you spend that time organizing a fundraiser, writing a series of poems for submission to contests during the school year, or putting the finishing touches on an Intel project is up (etc) is up to you.</p>
<p>And Tallkid, sit down with your parents and talk with them about how they expect you to pay for your education. Maybe all of the money is there, or maybe they’d like you to get a summer job and put your money away for college. If they tell you that they think you are asking about this sooner than you need to, tell them that you are asking because you love them, and you don’t want them to be surprised about the money situation at the last minute. And then encourage them to visit the Financial Aid and Parents Forums here so that they can learn the things that will be most useful for them.</p>
<ol>
<li>Figure out how to be happy. If you can’t be happy in HS, you may never be happy. </li>
<li>Make your goal to become the best person that you can be. Figure out the kind of person that you want to be and go for it. Experiment. Choose to spend your time doing things that you enjoy to further your goal of becoming who you want to be. Enjoy it (see priority 1). Don’t do anything just to impress colleges. Have more self-respect than that. Eliminate all cynicism. Your goal should not be to attend Stanford or the Ivies. That’s not a goal that’s totally within your control, and people who make that their number one goal are not often happy (see priority 1). If you become the person that you want to be and Stanford or the Ivies don’t accept you, then you didn’t really want to go there anyway. Becoming successful is totally within your control. I like PinotNoir’s suggestions. </li>
<li>Get enough sleep. Sleep is critical to your still developing cognitive function. Too many kids screw themselves up permanently by not getting enough sleep. Lack of sleep can also lead to unhealthy stress and poor performance in school. It’s a vicious cycle. Regular sleep is a higher priority than grades because you can survive B’s, but you can’t reach your potential with damaged cognitive function. I’m not talking about an occasional late night to finish a paper or study for a midterm, but if you can’t sleep 8 hours a night on a regular basis, you are damaging yourself. </li>
<li>Do the best that you can in school, but remember that grades are an approximation to reality. Challenge yourself to your capacity, but not beyond (see priority 3). Study hard. Learn how to be effective with your time. Have self-confidence and self-respect. Don’t ever cheat. Not even once. </li>
</ol>
<p>Only once you have those priorities internalized I might suggest reading something like “A is for Admission” by Michelle Hernandez.</p>
<p>By the way, I forgot to mention they put me in Pre-Algebra maybe because I just came in as new student this year. Though, almost everyone is in Algebra 1. Is this going to affect my high school transcript because I will be studying Algebra 1 next year and some of them will go to Geometry some of them to Geometry Honors?</p>
<p>Tallkid, at your age, I think it’s worth getting serious about your schoolwork. For most good students, this is a matter of becoming well-organized and disciplined, not about being brilliant. Many eighth-graders are just developing the maturity to plan ahead and to defer immediate gratification for long term rewards. No matter where you go to school or what your career ends up being, learning to plan ahead, and to complete tasks on time and to a high standard, will give you an edge.</p>
<p>At the same time, don’t focus too much on the most tippy-top, famous, elite schools. They are very hard to get into, and depending on your family situation, they might not be affordable. Besides, as I’ve told my kids, you don’t want to be the dumbest kid accepted at MIT. Better to be in the top half of the class at a less prestigious college or university, that caters to students in your ability range whatever that might be. There are many, many excellent colleges and universities in the US.</p>
<p>As for ECs, do something you really enjoy and are good at, and by your senior year you will likely be in the sorts of leadership positions that look impressive in a college application. But your academic record and test scores are generally going to loom much larger than your ECs for college admissions officers.</p>
<p>As for your math placement, don’t sweat it. If you want to major in a science or engineering subject, just take math all four years of high school so that you will have taken at least some calculus before you get to college. Even that isn’t absolutely required, though.</p>
<p>Actually, I think it could definitely be a potential problem for certain schools. If most of the other strong students in your school will be taking Calculus, and you will still be on Precalculus senior year, then I think it could place you at a competitive disadvantage for admission to the top schools. You can try to explain it away, but it would be better to catch up. </p>
<p>If you are currently blowing away prealgebra, see if you can take an online Algebra course like from EPGY or CTY to accelerate so that you can take Geometry Honors next year. Have your parents talk to the head of the math department at your school and see what you have to do to get credit for Algebra. However, Algebra is probably the most important math class if not THE most important class overall that you will ever take and you need to learn every ounce of it thoroughly so that it’s all second nature. </p>
<p>If that is not feasible, see if you can take Geometry and Algebra II at the same time sophomore year to catch up. That’s another common way to do it. </p>
<p>However, if you struggle at all with math, then it’s far better to learn math slower but learn it well even if it costs you the admission to an elite college. Like I said before, getting into an elite college should not be the most important thing at this stage in your life. Developing yourself into who you want to be is far more important.</p>