<p>I'm a Sophomore at UNC. I wrote this article in my new blog about so things I went through in my college application process. It may be helpful to prospective college students out there.</p>
<p>Those were some pretty good things to keep in mind! Thank you!</p>
<p>They took the link away, so here it is:</p>
<p>The road to college is a long, arduous task. I can easily say that there are decisions I made as far back as middle school and elementary school that affected my college application. Unfortunately, for my generation, the internet and blogosphere wasn’t as comprehensive as it is today. My guidelines were basically: make good grades, get involved, write a good essay, and show the college board who you really are. While you should definitely take these age-old instructions to heart, there is much more than you can do to land yourself in a high quality university. I have composed a list of 6 things I didn’t know in my middle school/high school years that I wish I had. </p>
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<li><p>Start taking the SAT/ACT tests early. I took my first SAT test in 7th grade. Although, I hadn’t covered a majority of the material in school yet, it was very beneficial to know what the test was about and how it was structured. By knowing the layout and style of the SAT in 7th grade, I was able to relate the things I learned in future classes (from 8th grade to my senior year in high school) to how the SAT would word similar problems and questions. Furthermore, continue to take the SAT as many times as you feel comfortable–push yourself and it will pay off the in end. If you aren’t a great standardized test taker, keep studying and keep taking practice tests. I DO NOT believe in the old adage that “you can’t improve your SAT score by a significant margin” so it’s not worth it to keep taking the test. The problems on the SAT can be mastered with enough practice and hard work! Plus, most colleges accept your best SAT score from each section, so it definitely pays off to take the SAT many times.</p></li>
<li><p>Start early with community service! After talking to many college admissions officials and university professors, I realized a major flaw in my college journey. The ideal candidate I found that most college admissions officials wanted was summarized by two words: passion and dedication. They want to see you find a passion for something and dedicate yourself to it for 3, 4, or 5 years. That is why you must start in middle school or early high school. On my college application, I had just one long-term project (a food drive that I had worked at for several years, but only once per month) and countless other extracurricular activities that I abandoned as quickly I as joined them. When the acceptance letters started arriving my senior year, it was amazing to see so many of my friends getting denied, deferred or wait-listed. They all had one thing in common: they were the group of students, like so many at every high school, that relied solely upon stacking their application with lots of little extracurricular clubs and organizations–but then had nothing to show for them. That is, they didn’t have any accolades or recognitions from these clubs, or leadership positions, or references from the adult leaders and teachers, etc. I can easily see the college admissions board glancing over applications with the lists of random clubs/activities/extracurriculars that don’t have any substance and saying “Blah, put this on the top of the big pile of usual.” So my advice is to you is: start early with a project or organization, make a difference, and strive for a leadership position. There is a reason why most applications ask you for your activities AND the amount of time spent monthly/yearly on that activity. They are looking for DEDICATION not EXAGERRATION!</p></li>
<li><p>Strive for leadership! Throughout middle school and high school, always ask yourself the question: how can I get more responsibily? Whether it be sports teams, extracurricular clubs, community service organizations, or a job, always strive for responsibility! I don’t have enough time to write the multitude of ways this has helped me through life, let alone on my college application. If you are looking for an acceptance letter from a higher-caliber university you better darn well be a leader. The big question college’s want to know when they are deciding whether to accept you is: Can you deal with a lot on your plate? and Do you want seconds? With this economy, and the sheer number of applicants each year applying to colleges and universities, the students gettings admitted will be the LEADERS, who are hungry for responsibility, and have proved on their college applications that they have been hard-working, responsible, leaders in their community for many years.</p></li>
<li><p>Start taking AP/IB classes your freshman year in high school (or earliest possible) and take as many AP/IB courses as you can (while making A’s and B’s). The bottom line is that AP, or Advanced Placement, classes boost your GPA when you get high grades in these courses! I made all A’s in high school, except for a B in Calculus, but still wasn’t the top of my class , GPA-wise. Why? I didn’t take enough AP courses (I only graduated having taken 5 while others had 6 or 7) and the others students who had taken them had a significant increase to their GPA. A regular A in an honors course in my high school was credited with a 4.0 and an A in an AP course was credited with a 5.0. I didn’t realize the signifcance until application time and my class rank was lower than I expected (after having made almost perfect grades in high school). So my best advice to you for boosting your GPA is to TAKE ALL THE AP COURSES YOU CAN! They are not much harder than your core/honor’s classes and they are very beneficial. Not only do they increase your GPA but also give you college credit (which is VERY VERY helpful, i.e. getting calculus out of the way in h.s. so it doesn’t affect your college GPA).</p></li>
<li><p>Do not trust guidance counselors! This may be my most shocking advice, but it is by far the most important. Guidance counselors are paid to help students graduate, not get acceptance letters from big universities. I’m not saying that there aren’t any out there that are extremely nice and helpful–I’m stating that most are not concerned with you enough to trust them with your future. The people you need to trust are those that have been accepted to a university, or are alumni, or work for the university (professors, graduate students, etc.), and even better if they are from a university you are applying to. Not once did my guidance counselor in high school ever push me or motivate me to take a more AP courses. Actually, he would usually tell me things like “most students just take 1 AP course per year” or “most students don’t take any until their junior year”. Message to guidance counselor: YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY WRONG and you ALMOST RUINED MY COLLEGE FUTURE! Message to readers: don’t trust them. Guidance counselors aren’t sleezy or out to wrong you, they just don’t have the time to give you the information you need. Find other credible sources! </p></li>
<li><p>Always keep an eye on your competition. Your competition is the other students in your class that want the same acceptance letter as you do. Your goal is not to be the best candidate the college board has ever seen, but to be someone they can safely say is more robust, well-rounded, responsible, mature, hard-working, attuned, and motivated for a collegiate future than the majority of other applicants. My advice, is to always monitor the activity of your competition. Know what they are involved in. Know class ranks, GPAs, who’s taking what classes, who’s doing what on the side. If you think you can keep to yourself and just make good grades in high school you are likely to be disappointed. Applying for college takes strategy. You must find ways to set yourself apart. By monitoring what others are doing you can find trends. A rule of thumb: if everyone seems to be involved in the same club or organization or extracurricular, stay away from it. Set YOURSELF APART. Don’t let your application get put on the big pile of USUAL. Be UNSUAL! Give the admissions board something to remember you by. i.e. the student who started his on soccer camp to feed hungry kids in his community, or the student who worked at a summer camp for 4 years and developed a close relationship with a camper, etc. You don’t want the plain ol’ student in Beta Club, student in MADD, or student in Tech Club, or Science Club, or blah blah blah. Does membership in a club signify anything about who you are? Show them what you are made of! If you start early enough you have plenty of time to set yourself apart!</p></li>
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<p>Good luck to all you prospective college students out there!</p>
<p>that was a nice read man.</p>
<p>Thanks for this. I especially agree with your point about guidance counselors. My guidance counselors are pushing my classes top students to stay in state and not broaden our horizons.</p>
<p>THANK YOU! </p>
<p>I have been saying that my whole life! " High school counselors are paid to help kids graduate, and not paid to get big name acceptance letters." Good post!</p>
<p>Agree wholeheartedly with the no.2 advice. No.1 advice is nice also.</p>
<p>I agree with #6!! Also would have had our child do some prep between sophmore and junior year if I had planned better!</p>
<p>I agree with everything you said except the last paragraph, with which I vehemently disagree. Students should get involved with things they enjoy and for which they have a passion, regardless of whether or not they are “typical.” Colleges don’t care if you’re unique. Colleges care if you’re good at something, if your character has been radically redefined for the better by something, if something you do will leave a positive impact on the world. This can easily be a common activity like Model UN, and the applicant with a passion is leagues ahead of the kid that takes lyre lessons for the sake of being unique alone.</p>
<p>Also, you’re not competing against your classmates in college admissions any more than you’re competing against the applicant to your college from Indonesia. Knowing their GPA is useless.</p>
<p>great advice. definitely agree on all points.</p>
<p>@DwightEisenhower</p>
<p>Perhaps I should clarify #6. When I say “stay away from the typical things” I don’t mean to imply that students shouldn’t pursue what they enjoy and are passionate about (finding their passion was the topic of #5). What they must do is set themselves apart from other applicants – find something creative and unique within their passion and dedicate themselves to it. The point of looking for trends in what others are doing is to help the student find his or her own niche in their passion and not just everyone else’s. Just because certain clubs and organizations are offered at a high school, doesn’t mean everyone needs to join them. The students who will stand out on a college application are those who WEREN’T LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. </p>
<p>Also, knowing GPA is NOT useless. The GPA of your classmates in your school is a scale for which you can base on your merits. Every high school offeres different courses, grades differently, and has a differection selection of students. i.e. More AP courses offered = higher GPAs. A 3.5 in a small, rural h.s. may land you in the top 5% but in a big city metro h.s. it may push you back to top 20%. You must keep an eye on your classmate’s GPA’s to know if you are maximizing your potential. And yes, Dwight, you are competeting against students that aren’t from your h.s. or region, or country for that matter, but the latter still applies. Without a scale to judge your own GPA by, you have nothing to guide you to the top of your class. A college admissions board certainly doesn’t look at an American student’s h.s. GPA and an Indonesian student’s h.s. GPA side by side and pick the higher of the two. The college admissions will analyze where the student is from, what kind of schooling, what kind of teaching, class rankings, etc.</p>
<p>Interesting and welcome thread. It is a great platform for others to add their perspectives. </p>
<p>Myperspective comes as a parent who is now done with undergraduate admissions and has supported two children through the process. I want to acknowledge that my experiences will have been different that others which will allow me to add to this thread while at the same time have my own limitations. So </p>
<h1>6 Though I have no knowledge on benefits of taking the ACT/SAT tests while in middle school, I want to caution applicants about becoming a habitual test taker. If I recall there is an age/grade before which any test taken is not passed along to the colleges to which you are applying. So any tests before that point are really at your discretion and I have no opinion. After that age/grade, the applicant needs to weigh the benefits of potentially raising your score compared to showing schools that you had to repeatedly take the test. Some may argue that score choice allows you to only show the tests you choose, but that is not the case for all schools. Take two similar Ivys, Harvard and Yale, for example. Yale will not allow you to pick and choose [Yale</a> Daily News - No choice on scores](<a href=“http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/27102]Yale”>http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/27102) while Harvard is in support of score choice [The</a> Harvard Crimson :: News :: Seniors Will Pick SATs to Submit](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=526072]The”>http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=526072) . Who knows what will be the policies of the schools to which you eventually apply? Now you may say that having a college see your many test retakes doesnt matter because colleges will only consider your best scores. That is true but you are also showing other qualities to them and will they be considered good or bad. It shows that that your high score did not come easily. Therefore do they assume something about your intelligence? It shows persistence. Now that can be a good thing but lets say that your scores are relatively high and you continue to test take, you can be seen as neurotic, never satisfied, or someone with no life. My point is that there are many things to consider when deciding to try for the high scores though extensive test taking. Each individual needs to think this through carefully. I do advocate preparing for tests. How you do this is your decision.</h1>
<p>Side note: D got a 33 cold on first try on ACT, June junior year. It was in the range for Ivy but D was debating trying again. I had heard here on CC that due to our geographic region the 33 would not cut it without a hook and she has none. She decided to write Yales AC about her 33. The advice was to not bother and spend her time working on her essays. Ultimately, she went w/ CCs advice and retook for a 35 composite but we will never know if the 33 vs 35 mattered. Yale claimed that it would not.</p>
<h1>5 The premise of #5 is logical but why the first line of start early with community service. It does not have to be community service that you are active in. My daughter unlike her brother (gold palm eagle scout) did not have comparatively extensive community service. What did she have? She had depth in activities but these were not activities that she suddenly started 4 5 years out with anticipation of college applications. These were activities that she started young (depending on the activity the starting age was between 3 and 9) and stayed involved in them because she was actually interested in them. So I guess my added advice would be, be sure that you continue with or add things that you find exciting or interesting. If you do that, the rest (passion, dedication, and leadership) will come naturally and will show on your application.</h1>
<h1>4 Leadership has always been a recommended trait. Be sure to look for the opportunities but dont fake it. Colleges can see through the token figure heads; President this, Vice-President that. Your teacher and GC recommendations will logically speak of your leadership and hopefully they are not just token. It is possible to be a leader without a title. Ironically, D did not have leadership titles until the end of high school. But I actually had no concern about her application process because her untitled leadership in her classes and activities was always referenced.</h1>
<h1>3 AP/IB? It depends upon your school. Our high school, when my son went through, did not allow ANY AP before senior year. Ds year it was up to 2 AP in junior year and none before. The current rising seniors were allowed 3 their junior year and none before. So do not stress if your school is a school that wont allow you to take APs your freshman year.
This is not fully true, or at least not at our school. APs (at our school) will boost your weighted GPA not your unweighted. Both your unweighted and weighted GPAs are reported with your transcript. Unweighted GPA shows how you did within the classes you chose while weighted GPA combines your grades with your academic rigor. The weighted GPA is usually used to calculate your rank or percentile to show how you are placed among your peers.
These policies are different between schools and even change over time. It is important to know YOUR schools policies so you make informed decisions. For comparison, a friends son at a Connecticut school has no such thing as a weighted GPA. Taking APs actually lowers a students GPA and therefore their rank since it is typically harder to earn the A in the AP that the non-AP class. BUT at the same time, colleges will be looking for academic rigor and your GC will be commenting on that in their report so skimping on APs can also be bad. Ultimately, check out Common Ap Secondary School Report Form, get out your HS handbook and learn their grading, GPA, and rank policies, and then decide what classes are right for you.</h1>
<h1>2 Do not trust your Guidance Councilors! Yes and no. GCs are not your babysitters. There are schools that have fabulous GCs and schools with terrible ones. What have I learned? Be your own advocate. Do your own research and be responsible for yourself then use the GC as a sounding board. Make sure that your GC knows YOU. Remember, the GC submits the Secondary School Report. Your GC writes one of your recommendations. Do you hope that he/she will not send off a generic form letter style recommendation about your accomplishments? They cannot do this without knowing you. Ds GC was very honest about the schools to which D was applying and did an accurate evaluation of her options. My ONLY complaint over the years has been that ours did not promote the logic of taking SAT IIs after a student has studied the corresponding curriculum.</h1>
<h1>1 Keeping an eye on the competition can make you crazy and does not guarantee that you are accepted at the school(s) of your choice. Strive to be your best at whatever you do and push yourself fully. If you are truly doing this, then your grades and classes will be the best you can achieve and your ECs will be deep. I dont think you have to study everyone around you and define yourself as someone you are not. In a sense, my daughters ECs are mundane, dance, skiing, saltwater fishing, and music, but she did do them fully. Her results were fine. BTW, Dwights comments were a great addition to this point.</h1>
<p>What would be my advice? Do your best, push yourself but be you. Be the person in the expressions if you want something done, give it to a busy person. While doing the above, connect with people. Not falsely but remember someday you will be looking for recommendations. Actually know the schools to which you are applying and why you are applying and why you are a good match. Both my kids could have easily whipped off a Why XYZ college? essay for every school to which they applied. In the process, the application was easier, and sincere and interviews were a breeze.</p>
<p>Adding to the latest debate about GPA. Up until this year, I was under the false impression that for the most elite schools applicants from the same school were up against each other. Our school is not huge, rarely gets Ivy acceptances and the record for Harvard had been one athletic recruit in 08 and then one in 99. D and a friend were both applying to Harvard. With our record, realistically they would both be rejected and I figured that at a minimum one of them would have to be disappointed. Who would it be? Would it be my D with the slightly higher academics or him with better ECs? March 31, we were shocked. They were BOTH accepted. I am so glad they did not both spend 4 years trying to be better than the other. This year the top kids are all friendly with each other, which is often (at least at our school) not the case.</p>
<p>Hope these new points are of help!</p>
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<p>I think our disagreement is just a semantics thing. I think we can both agree that students should try to stand out, but not necessarily in what they choose to do but rather in how they pursue it. </p>
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<p>The only time you would ever need to gauge your class rank is to determine what schools you have a realistic chance of getting accepted to. “Merit” and GPA aren’t the same thing.</p>
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<p>If you can only determine whether or not you’re maximizing your potential by how your classmates are doing, you’re in trouble. Crappy high school X produces valedictorians every year but not all of them have equal shots at getting into the same college.</p>
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<p>What does that matter? I thought this was about getting into college? Knowing your rank doesn’t change your rank, unless your only motivation to do well is to beat other people.</p>
<p>OOh. I agree with no.1 advice!!! ALWAYS ALWAYS keep an eye on your competition - I think this can serve as a motivation factor as well as an informative one.</p>
<p>Number 2 is right on.</p>