<p>HI!
im an 8th grader.... and i kinda needed some advise on how to secure my college pathway.
I had straight A's starting in grade school, and was the top student every year.
When graduating 6th grade I got almost every award possible...Gold Presidents Award, National ACT teacher's foundation, some military merit badge thingy... etc.
Well, for my ec, I have piano (lev.8) tae-kwon-do (black belt 3rd degree) art (3 years?) debate club (3 years) tennis (4 years)... and I think thats it...
I got into a well known "college prepatory academy" for middle and high school..
and thats about all the things i have so far.</p>
<p>im going to be choosing the medical pathway in high school... and i kinda want to get in to John Hopkins.</p>
<p>is this enough for now? what should I do more?</p>
<p>Settle the hell down. you're not even a freshman yet. relax and live a little. </p>
<p>1) your ecs in middle school don't matter unless they carry over into high school.
2) actually, nothing you did in middle school matters unless you choose to write about it on your college apps or the results carry over into high school.
3) there's nothing you can do to completely 'secure your college pathway'. you do the best that you can do, and you hope that colleges will like it enough to accept you. </p>
<p>this is harsh, i know. but you have 3 years left to live before you have to worry about this crap. go outside and get some air before its too late. and don't look at CC until you finish sophomore year. too many people here (including me) waste too many hours on this damn site.</p>
<p>Keep doing well in school, particularly your junior year in high school. Decide by the end of next year which EC you enjoy the most and do a lot of it. If it's karate then try teaching some classes as well as winning competitions. If it's piano then enter some contests and see if there is some place you would like to volunteer to play. If it's debate then join the team in high school and win some competitions. Don't give up everything else, but really try to put a lot of time and energy into what you like the most. School will become harder around 10th grade, and it gets hard to excel at many activities so you may have to give up one. If you don't really like anything you are doing, then find something you do like. Now is the time to explore. Is there some way you can explore medicine? My son has a friend who is only 20 and he is already an EMT and a health officer at a local summer camp. He doesn't want to be a doctor, but he really likes EMT and spent a lot of time in high school on CPR training, etc.</p>
<p>Absolutely nothing you do in middle school makes a difference, unless it involves curing one of several major diseases, or aggravated murder. This is your time to begin drinking (your time to stop is death).</p>
<p>If you TRULY want to secure your pathway, start saving money to get a college counselor, who will spoon-feed you everything you'll need to do to get into a competitive school so that you become an arrogant, dependent scholastaddict who ends up not having that much fun in college.</p>
<p>In other words, chill out. Once freshman year comes around, start thinking about what you WANT to do, not what you SHOULD be doing. Make sure you commit to several ECs that pertain to your prospective major in college- in other words, don't have a fat list like half of the chancees on this site containing just about every available activity from varsity sports to volunteer assistant spongebath coordinator at a local schizophrenia-cum-substance-abuse clinic for blind left-handed orphans. Stick to a handful of solid activities to which you devote yourself, mind, body, and soul (at least make it seem that way on your applications) while keeping a high gpa and rank.</p>
<p>If you think you should, take a test prep class for the SAT; otherwise, a more surefire way to do well on standardized tests is to be a born genius.</p>
<p>Other than that, make sure you still have a social life in high school so that when you DO go to college, you aren't emerging from your cave of academic obsession for the first time to be b!tchslapped by the bright light of college social life.</p>
<p>i'm in a similar situation .. writing up a four year plan helped me relax about the whole thing. our year, 2011, will be the most competitive of them all. just do your best and have a focus area.</p>
<p>I sympathise with mj93, Class of 2010 - International with Financial Need <em>sigh</em> mj, what calmed me down was looking at my State University (UMD!) and realising that it wasn't "that bad". Luckily you live in Minnesota, so you can count on UMinn (which is pretty nice actually). If you come with that 4 year plan, do tell me (Only 2 and half years till college applications!!!!). Good Luck!</p>
<p>planning ahead is great(i kind of wish i had thought about my future that seriously at your age!) but don't lock yourself in. you may want to change your mind eventually on your plans, and that's fine. do a few different activities that you're passionate about, but don't avoid something because you can't put it on a transcript. otherwise i guarantee you you'll hate high school.
BUT DON'T STRESS NOW. if you're stressing before 9th grade you'll have a heart attack in three years.</p>