<p>Hi, I'm currently an 8th grader, about to enter HS next year. Our counselor told us to start think a little bit about college now. Before you tell me that I'm too young and to calm down, I just wanted to ask what did it take to get accepted or what does Stanford look for in students? What little things did you start doing at my age and how did that amount to your years as a senior or junior? I just want to know what to think about now. </p>
<p>Thanks. </p>
<p>The most overlooked part of college applications is passion. Find what you love and extend it to your academics and extracurricular. You can have the top grades, best SAT scores, and myriad honor societies, but if you can’t talk about a subject with love, then consider yourself an automatic reject.</p>
<p>Be yourself. Find exactly what you love and excel; take the opportunities you’ve been given and don’t be afraid to try things. Your greatest obstacle is yourself. </p>
<p>I promise, everything falls into place! Don’t stress. Do what you love and find your specialty. Learn about something because it fascinates you. </p>
<p>That is literally the only advice you need. With a good GPA/ classes reflecting your ability and interest, great SAT scores, ECs that you find interesting, and PASSION, you have a chance at any school you want to go to- especially Stanford.</p>
<p>Have fun in high school!</p>
<p>Good advice, given above. However please understand that even if you do everything noted above and more, you face very fierce competition to get in to Stanford. With a 5% acceptance rate, many, many “perfect” students are rejected. This includes valedictorians, star athletes (although really, it depends on the sport and the projected needs of the team) and kids co-authoring research papers published in scientific journals. You should aim high, work hard at school AND a meaningful EC, and prep for the SAT/ACT. Then, come application time, cast a WIDE net, with schools that have much higher acceptance rates, as well as the more selective schools. Balance is key here…all the tippy top schools are a crap shoot for EVERYONE. Ideally your GPA/test scores should fall above the 75th percentile at the majority of your picks. Actually I think all of them, but applying to one or two long shots might be an ok strategy if you think your overall profile (athlete, virtuoso, chess champion, first gen college student who faced a tough start in life, etc) will make up for any deficiencies in your test scores/GPA.</p>
<p>Good luck, and good job looking ahead. Many don’t until it’s too late, so you are ahead of the game!</p>
<p>Having just been accepted to Stanford and Harvard, this is what I’ve figured out. I hope it helps you, because you seem like an incredibly driven kid.
There’s no formula to getting into one of these schools. You’re going to be told a hundred different things that people have done, but ultimately it differs for each applicant. There needs to be something about you that distinguishes you from the other 45,000 people who are applying. As an eighth grader, you shouldn’t possibly have any idea what this “thing” is, but you’ll figure it out eventually. I think I read somewhere that 90% (don’t quote me on this) of applicants to elite college are qualified and could succeed, so basically it comes down to what you’re going to add to the class that others can’t. Whether this is an interesting perspective, amazing experiences, or whatever else, passion definitely helps in demonstrating whatever this is to admissions officers. That being said, I don’t think that most people understand truly how holistic elite colleges are. I’m not an expert, but, personally, I would take some of shellz advice with a grain of salt. When applying to a school like Stanford, quite simply it’s impossibly to have your test scores above the 75th percentile. Just get them in the range (around 2200 for SAT and around 33 for ACT) and the admission officers really don’t care too much beyond that. If you can score that high, the extra fifty points really don’t matter to them. I think the single most overlooked aspect of admissions is essays. People say they’re important, but I honestly believe they’re the MOST important. Just today I received a letter from my admissions officer referencing what he loved in my essays. Be true to yourself, write about things that matter to you, and genuinely love who you become over the next four years. Embrace the change that comes to you in life. If you do those things, you’ll look back in three and a half years and laugh at yourself for even wondering what you should write about. It might take a little thinking, but you’ll know.
If you need anything else message me!</p>
<p>Oh, and if you want more tangible info than what’s above, the Common Data Set (<a href=“Stanford Common Data Set | University Communications”>Contact Us | University Communications) explicitly states what Stanford considers in admissions.</p>
Thank you hopefullyhopeles!
Thinking about college is fine but picking colleges is too soon. It is better to understand different types of colleges and what features they offer. And it is best to think how you can make the most of yourself academically in high school. this is what my daughter did in 8th grade to prepare for hs and college: read lots of books, visit lots of museums for art, science and history, go to plays, play with friends, start clubs for fun (math club was called Secret Club), go above and beyond in your schoolwork, take up a sport. Oh, and took SAT as part of a talent search–no studying!
haha, I actually posted that a year ago, before freshman year.
I actually am going to Stanford regularly for my research internship right now. It’s my first experience exposed to a university campus (I’ve been taking CC classes for a year now), and I enjoy it. Thanks for the advice, and I’ll just do the things I love, and hope for the best in the next three years.
Regarding your questions:
Whether you like it or not, there is no concrete answer to this question. To answer the question vaguely. A strong academic record is really the one necessity that all Stanford students (with possible exception from athletes) have. Other than that you need to show your uniqueness in some extraordinary way. This can be sports, overcoming extreme hardship, excelling in some academic sector, etc. However, when I mean “extraordinary” I really mean extraordinary. Just because you are a three sport athlete, or your parents have gone through divorce, or you take all the AP classes your school offers doesn’t exactly separate you from the applicant pool when there are others who are already competing in sports at a professional level, succeeding in multiple facets of life despite living in constant fear for their lives, or even solving the enigmatic cancer dilemma.
To be honest, this question isn’t relevant for me. I was never planning on applying to an “elite” college until my senior year. Nevertheless, my 8th grade year was a year where I began to see the transformative potential that hard work held. I became increasingly interested in multiple areas of study and began to push myself in school BECAUSE I WANTED TO. I would suggest that as you enter high school try and find a few clubs that you really want to grow in and look for opportunities to be a leader and a learner. DON’T JOIN EVERY CLUB AND DO NOTHING IN THEM.
Best of Luck!