<p>klearr, you are a hs freshman. Don’t feel so badly when you make a mistake in the name of a course. I am still impressed with your determination and goal setting.</p>
<p>I was a lot like you when I was a freshmen and I am a junior now. It is very good that you have a plan but that plan should be on the back burner. Keep it in mind, but be open to new ideas also. Classes and everything you have planned out are important, but what will be most important are your experiences which will be conveyed in your essay. For instance, when I was a freshmen, I never would have expected my essays to be about crazy sailing experiences with my friend and making friends with the eccentric 76-year-old organist at my church who is also a history professor, tree farmer, Bach scholar, and fan of the Jonas Brothers. </p>
<p>Use your plan as a loose guide but be open to changes.</p>
<p>Yay…CC took care of the haters comments. The plans are very loose. ↑76 year old likes jonas brothers, LQTM. Ya, I know some crazy stuff is about to happen over the years, due to the friends I hang out with.</p>
<p>BOTTOM LINE</p>
<p>You might be “smart” enough to get high test scores and get leadership positions, but you are COMPLETELY missing the nuance of the college admission process. It is so much less about black and white achievements, and more about who you are as a person.</p>
<p>Don’t try to respond to this. Don’t try to reason your way into a justification. Don’t come back here for a year or two. Do well in school, follow your passions and you won’t be behind at all. </p>
<p>(Also, don’t be whiny around here the few days before decisions drop. We all aren’t really in the mood.)</p>
<p>Sorry about the rudeness about the decision drop. I posted this thread, before I new the decision was so soon. I found out quickly when I browsed through the other threads. I know you told me not to respond.</p>
<p>Good luck on Tuesday. :)</p>
<p>I didn’t mean not to respond at all, but don’t try to counter my point. I suppose an open discussion is always good… but…</p>
<p>Basically if there’s anything I can impress upon you it’s that you should just do what you find fun and are passionate about. if that means painting pictures and getting no credit or fame out of it, so be it. don’t worry about building a resume. Honestly, the best “gems” on my resume are things I stumbled into because I was just having fun with no regard to my resume. I think colleges pick up on that. </p>
<p>This website has so many wonderful resources and people, but it also has a darkside. It sucks the soul out of college admissions in the attempt to make everything objective. People go crazy with details and eventually lose sight of the big picture. </p>
<p>I guess I’m trying to protect you from venturing into the darkness. </p>
<p>and thanks :)</p>
<p>Hey klearr, remember that people who post negative responses are typically NOT Princeton students or anyway connected to Princeton. College Confidential is typically a great place to learn information about the application process and about schools. Sometimes, people who don’t think exactly like a poster, get sarcastic or negative. Just don’t pay attention to those posts. I learned an enormous amount from this website that really did help my son in the application process.</p>
<p>In your case, planning is good, and as other posters have said, just be open to changing those plans or new experiences. For instance, right now, you think you know what courses you will probably take in HS, but that may change according to any new interests, etc. Some may think that a student has to take Calculus or physics to get into Princeton, but my didn’t. He did however take more a strenous course load that included 5 AP’s junior year, more than any student in his grade. He also took AP Euro at the same time he took AP US History, which had never been permitted in our school. History is his passion. So, he concentrated on my history classes, while at the same time excelling in Bio AP and Molecular Bio. There is no exact list of what has to be done to get accepted to Princeton, but I think you are right in your thinking to plan on taking difficult courses and show a real passion for whatever interests you.</p>
<p>Yeah, I got turned off by the general CC crowd at first, but now I am looking around other threads and have seen most posters are very kind. </p>
<p>“So, he concentrated on my history classes”.
Are you a history teacher?</p>
<p>This has got to be a joke…this guy is pullin everyone’s leg.</p>
<p>It’s fine being a “machine,” as long as you’re a really good one. But seriously, you really need to find something that is passionate and applicable to other things you do. Besides, I don’t necessarily agree with your claims that your school is “difficult” and hat the curriculum is challenging. Name your high school. If it’s a general public school, you should be getting 98’s as your averages.</p>
<p>I can’t believe you brought this thread back to life.</p>
<p>I go to a general public High school. I do not get 98’s in every class, because I am taking two AP classes. Although they are the easiest AP classes available, they are still college courses. 98’s aren’t required. an 89.5 is an “A” and so is a 100. I guarantee you that most people that have 4.0’s have borderline grades, such as a 90. I work, run year-round, and Have multiple EC’s. I don’t have time to get 98’s in all my classes.
No, it’s not fine being a machine, because you are not one.</p>
<p>My grandfather is dying of gastrointestinal cancer, so I was originally thinking of starting a fund. Then I thought to myself “hey wouldn’t it look good on a resume, if I started a small organization.” Please tell me that you never did something to put on your application, like take practice SAT’s in order to get a higher score. Yeah, I was not being myself when I posted that, but now I see I should just be myself. I am not perfect, that’s why I came here for advice.</p>
<p>90 is an A-. A-'s are 3.75. My world history HONORS course in ninth grade was AP, with an AP book, andthe fact that your inflated school calls classes AP for mere ninth graders leads me to doubt the rigor of your classes. My school generally offers AP classes for juniors and seniors. Besides, our honors classes are just as hard as your APs anyways.</p>
<p>In most schools an A is a 4.0. I went to a private school in MS that ranked GPA similarly to your school. I have seen that schools that rate on actual percentage (ie: 98%) give more “busy work” and easier tests. Why would your school call an AP class honors? This year my classes are not very difficult, as you pointed out. My school does not just call classes AP. All tests in my AP classes are from the AP collegeboard tests. Just because my weighted GPA is inflated, doesn’t mean the work is any easier. How would you know how hard my AP’s are???</p>
<p>OP: It is WAY too early in your life to begin worrying about this stuff. You need to take a deep breath, stay off of this website, and go enjoy your high school days. Work hard on your courses, play hard in your ECs, go to dances, go get an ice cream, do the best yuou can and no more, and everything will work out in the end. You only have to read a few dozen posts on here in the recent week to know that no amount of planning or hoping or grinding or posting on CC will guarantee that you will get into one particular school. Your head will explode if you keep coming to this Princeton forum for the next four years. Get off of CC and go outside and play kickball or ride your bike. Trust me, it will actually make it more likely that you end up getting into Princeton… Because they don’t accept people who have no heads.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>(I should add: I followed this advice from day one – just kept my head down and lived in the moment – didn’t begin sweating college stuff until sometime in my junior year. I got into Brown, Tufts, Georgetown, Villanova, Emory, Boston College, and several other very good schools. Got waitlisted at Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia. Rejected only at Yale. Sure, could I have MAYBE gotten into one of my W/L schools if I had blown off a school dance or a friend’s party, or a chance to go skiiing back in my sophomore year? No. Unlikely. It is what it is. You will see. Take her easy, dude/dudette…)</p>
<p>Today I was just thinking about how I was checking out Harvard and MIT and Princeton for schools the summer before junior year, and compared to all the things I’ve done since then, I had no chance of getting in. You can’t plan so far in advance what’s going to happen to you that will make you a strong applicant. My biggest asset was that I was invited to be Musical Director for several school and children’s musicals in my junior year. If that had never happened, I know for sure I would have not gotten into Princeton.</p>
<p>klearr, sorry that was a typo in my last post. I am referring to my son, and didn’t mean to say “my” classes, but “his” history classes. I feel very badly about the tone of some of these responses that are attacking you. There are plenty of people on CC who aren’t so negative. Please don’t get discouraged.</p>
<p>Great post saccolicious. I just posted this to give my next few years an outline, I know everything won’t go according to plan. i already changed some of the classes for next year since this thread was posted.</p>
<p>The fact you think you’re going to get straight A’s and a high SAT score is ridiculous. You are so naive and ignorant of the whole process. It’s sad that you’re shaping your whole high school life on getting into a school. Wow.</p>
<p>As I said, this is an outline of goals for the next couple of years. It is not set. </p>
<p>I wish this thread would just die already</p>