<p>OP, my first reaction when I read your post was to tell you to calm down a little. Not in the way your generation says that, but I want you to slow down a little and reign in your drama! Cut your arm off, spill your guts lol…eagerness and passion are wonderful applied to intellectual pursuits - and yours look good btw - but QB is a marathon, and the process requires a lot of focus and stamina. You will have to be very organized, thorough, and methodical. Focus yourself and your energy. </p>
<p>Don’t get overextended with EC’s, stay with a few and keep going deeper with them. Figure out how you want to present yourself in your application and cultivate those aspects of your profile. Don’t get spread too thin.
I agree that your college list is somewhat random right now. Next year you will be able to apply for fully funded fly-in programs to do campus visits at schools you’re going to apply to – or are interested in. Next summer check out the list at the diversity fly-in thread and you’ll apply summer after junior year and fall of senior year. You’ll find colleges that suit you and hone a list by visiting as many as you can, starting with the QB CPS conference You can keep your eyes and ears open now but you can wait until Junior year to really work on that list. Of course take any opportunity to visit any college campuses. The more you see the more you can begin to discover what works for you and compare different aspects of college life and learning. When the time comes I suggest you look more at the liberal arts colleges and balance your list better with more LACs. Right now you have universities because you’ve heard of them That’s OK. You have to start somewhere! There are lots of reasons that LACS are ideal for undergraduates and esp for QB scholars. In many ways, Yale College is more like a LAC than like a large American University for UG education.</p>
<p>Applying for CPS through QB spring of your junior year will give you a lot of help and direction about the college search and application process. You’ll attend a college fair with all QB partner schools. But don’t get ahead of yourself, as exciting as it is.
For now, don’t spend too much time thinking about college. You should stay focused on whatever you’re doing and spend as much time as you can cultivating your passions and interests, intellectual and otherwise, in school and out of school , summers as well - but NOT because of college applications. If there is one thing that colleges don’t want, it’s students who have shaped themselves to be what colleges want. It’s ironic but what looks good on college applications are generally students who haven’t thought much about college applications. e.g. you would never want to pursue “build(ing) up my resume” as a HS sophomore, esp QB. Colleges want to see you doing activities because that’s what you really really want to be doing (the activities may, in fact, help you “build up your resume” but that’s not why you’re doing them). In fact, there’s a saying that anyone in HS with a ‘resume’ longer than one page is spread too thin and hasn’t really dedicated herself to anything. As long as you are taking your standardized tests, (SAT and ACT, SAT IIs and plenty of APs), stay with at least one foreign language and always take the most challenging courses you can do well in, you’re good. Aside from that, follow your bliss until spring of your Junior year, and then you can hit the ground running for college admissions!</p>
<p>(In fact if I were you, I would stay off CC until the middle of junior year at the earliest. What you hear here from your peers won’t generally be good advice, it will make you anxious, it won’t apply to you, it may make you cynical, competitive, and give you a totally skewed view of college admissions. If you want to research colleges you can spend time on the QB website. Research the colleges there and also get to know the QB process. This will serve you well.)</p>