“It is way too early to think about specific colleges (especially the super-competitive ones).”
I have to respectfully disagree with this.
If you follow @momofsenior1’s advice and take four years of the core classes, you’re certainly on the right track. However, a lot of kids don’t take four years of each of the five cores. And if those students assume their high school’s list of graduation requirement are going to be adequate for their favored colleges, they may find more doors closed to them than they expected.
We have posters all the time on CC asking some version of “I am missing X requirement for Dream School, but should I apply anyway?” Sometimes that is due to special circumstances, but as often as not, it is due simply to poor planning. High school is as good a time as any to learn and practice this valuable life skill.
Even if you diligently take all the five cores, though, how is an OOS student hoping to go to Berkeley supposed to know that the UC colleges require a year of fine arts in high school? Students who do the research early enough can make room in their schedule for a qualifying class, if they have to. Wait until junior or senior year and it may be a problem.
We have a lot of students on these boards doubling up in math or taking it over the summer so they can get to calculus by senior year. Why? Because some colleges strongly recommend or even require it for certain programs. How would those students have known to do that if they weren’t told or didn’t look into it?
UIUC and Purdue are pretty comparable colleges for STEM. Purdue, however, requires applicants to have three years of social studies, and UIUC only requires applicants to have two. Harvard also wants three years of social studies, but they suggest that they prefer that two years be history (one world, one US) instead of a year each of psychology, economics, or government. I picked these examples to illustrate the subtle differences among the different college requirements. But isn’t it useful, to a budding therapist who is chomping at the bit to take AP Psych, to be aware exactly how s/he must plan differently to be a Harvard hopeful vs. a flagship hopeful?
High school shouldn’t be a long rat race with a top college as the finish line. And students shouldn’t live their high school careers focused on one or two highly selective universities. However, high schoolers are (for the most part) aware that T25 students aren’t born in spring of junior year. Striking a balance is the key. That means “running your own race”. It means deliberately closing some doors in order to keep others open (or just to keep one’s sanity in tact). It means putting the big rocks in the jar first, then the carefully selected medium-size rocks, then filling in with pebbles. Early awareness can reveal what big and medium rocks students want in their jar in the first place.