If you had to redo high school starting from freshman year, what would you do differently? Anything you’d tell yourself?
I am curious to hear your responses, as I have just finished my freshman year. Thank you!
It would have been better if I had started searching for an interest(s) back then. I would also have liked to have thought more about my ECs before choosing them. I wish I had a greater affinity for reading back then (like the kind of affinity I have for it now). I wish I would have had/taught myself better studying, note-taking, listening, homework-doing, etc. strategies back then.
I’m also a rising Sophomore, so I can only reflect on my Freshman year.
Maybe this is cliche, but I wish I had realized sooner that it didn’t matter what the others in my school thought of me. It would have saved me a lot of time that I wasted trying to be like them.
I wish I hadn’t tried to join every club I could, but picked just a few and spent more time in them. But really, I have very few regrets.
I wish I would’ve never made a Facebook
^ me too, there’s nothing to do on it, but I’m still on Facebook all the time.
I agree with nitwitoddment. I’m a rising senior and here’s what I’ve learned from my high school experience:
-If your area offers magnet schools, private schools, and/or charter schools, I wouldn’t recommend going if they have less than 600 students overall.
-Don’t stick to one major/career path since chances are you’ll change it many times while in hs and college.
-High School education is sub-par in my opinion. If you like a certain subject or want to get a better background in a subject, go to your local library or bookstore and read up.
-Read lots of books, both fiction and nonfiction, and write.
-Make daily schedules, whether or not you want to. Force yourself to do it because it’ll save you tons and tons of time.
-Join a lot of clubs your freshmen year and narrow the list down to the few you like most. Make an impact in those clubs.
-Keep time for your social life.
-If you have an option to take IB, be very careful and do tons of research on it before you take it.
-Have a good time and do what you enjoy. Try interning and volunteering and keeping time to pursue your hobbies.
Had I followed those tips, I may have dropped out of the magnet school that I attend and have had a much easier time, or I may have stayed and still had an easier time.
I kinda disagree with some of those… I go to a private school with a graduating class of 43. Number one, my school has given me SO many more opportunities than a large public school. We’re required to play sports, so I’ve gotten to do cheerleading, field hockey, and soccer. I found out that I love cheerleading. The classes are really small… 2-21 students per class. I really like the individual attention that we get and how our teachers know us really well. My college recs are coming from teachers who have taught me for 8 years, 5 years, and 3 years. At a larger school, you aren’t going to have a teacher that many times and the teacher won’t know you as much. There are a load of other benefits to going to a small school… but I won’t go on and on. Oh! And public school is an absolute joke. Most kids at my school could easily make straight A’s in public school, because our work is just so much more challenging. [This is only against public schools in my area… I don’t know about the rest of the country.]
High school does what it is supposed to do. It gives you a general background of knowledge so that you can go to college and pursue a major in depth or go out into the general working world. It isn’t generally sub-par… but this could stem from the fact that I don’t think public schools teach well either.
I don’t see the point in making daily schedules. I’ve been able to keep up with everything through high school. Some people need schedules, but others don’t. For me… it’d just waste my time, because I can generally keep up with everything. The only thing I can remember forgetting is a banquet in 10th grade when my dad was in the hospital.
There’s no reason to join tons and tons of clubs freshman year. Only join clubs that you’re interested in. If there are only two clubs that you’re interested in, join those.
But yeah… That’s just my perspective on things…
For me… I wish that I had probably done less in high school… not <em>more</em>. Now that I’m a senior, everything is a lot easier because I’m doing so much less.
im currently a high school senior and these are some of the things i would definately do differently if i could start over:
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read read and read some more- i always hated reading and never read more than the bare minimum requirements. BIGGEST MISTAKE EVER. When i took the SAT for the first time i realized how many words i didn’t know and i realized how below-par my comprehension skills were. To put it simple: the more you read, the easier time you’ll have when it comes to taking the SAT and, in general, doing well in school
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start your extra-curriculars now!!!
Those are basically the 2 biggest things i would have changed if i could go back in time. If you are already doing both, then i congratulate you; for you will already have a leg up on most kids your age
Good Luck!
That’s easy. Me, speaking to my 8th grade self: “8th grade self, tell our parents that you have to take APs in high school. If they seem <em>at all</em> hesitant about it, or try to change the subject, tell them that you would be better off in a normal high school than homeschooling. Actually, due to the health problems mom is going to have in the next few years, you should probably just tell them that anyway. You’ll stand a <em>much</em> better chance of getting into those colleges I know you’ve been dreaming about since forever, and you might even pick up some social skills. I know you love homeschooling now, but if you continue on the path your on now, you’ll end up like me and want to say this to your current you. <em>Please.</em> Go to high school. You won’t regret it.”
@AUGirl you do realize there are very strong public schools in this country, don’t you? My (public) school had 4800 students but it was deemed stronger than most, if not all, of the private schools in the area. A lot of public schools around my home and also where I go to college are likewise very strong. So you shouldn’t make such sweeping generalizations.
Anyways onto the original question, I have a few regrets:
-I wish I did a musical or play or joined choir or something of that sort.
-I wish I tried harder freshman and sophomore year. Those two years really hurt me in college admissions.
-Part of me wishes I did football instead of golf. Both were fall. I still don’t really know which I’d rather have done.<br>
-I wished I got out more and did things other than study/sports/sleep.
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One of the things I’ve read and heard more than any other during the preparation for college applications is to make sure your transcripts and your standardized test scores are as high as possible going in - Yes colleges look at a lot of variables when make their selections but they need something to create those initial “piles” of applications, e.g. we’ll put all the >2300 SATs over here, perfect transcripts over here, etc.
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Home schooling is great preparation for a career stuffing envelopes, that way you avoid the nasty element of having to deal with other students/employees.
I’m a junior, so I still have some time left to learn things, but if you’re a freshmen or sophomore, I really want to reiterate some of the points from before.
I think I pretty much agree with everything guruofgreatness said, except for the first thing about not going to a high school with less than 600 students. But I REALLY think that it’s important to try a bunch of clubs and activities from the beginning and see what you like. It’s really a disadvantage to discover that you love something when you’re in your later years of high school. And your first impression of something might be that it seems boring or like an activity you wouldn’t like, but when you actually try it, you might discover that you actually really like it. I wish that I hadn’t judged activities by how they sounded and actually tried them first.
Also, really search for opportunities (summer programs, internships, scholarships, awards, etc) while you’re younger. It’s super frustrating to find out about programs that sound amazing for you, only to find out that you’re barely too old for them. You’ve discovered CC earlier than I did in my high school career, so that’s good. You should definitely check out the boards to find something that sounds interesting for you.
And there’s nothing wrong with public schools. Maybe in AUGirl’s area the public schools are really poor, but there are plenty of public schools (including mine) that are actually very strong schools and routinely have several people matriculating to the best universities in the nation.
Senior now. I definitely should have worked harder, done more of my homework, and not settled for Bs when I could have easily gotten As. Homework was always my downfall: since I knew that I could usually get A on tests, and I often considered the study guides they gave us to be pointless, I would lower my grades by not doing my homework. Perfect example would be my freshman and sophomore history classes. I got an B in freshman year, A in sophomore year, but a 5 on both AP exams. I was able to easily get A in sophomore year because my teacher made most of the homework optional.
I would also tell my junior self to reconsider the classes I took. AP Calculus BC is NOT for me. It gave me my only D.
It would have also been nice to have started some kind of club earlier, or taken more a leadership role in one of my other clubs. I am starting a club this year, but it would have been nice to have taken the initiative earlier.
Oh, and Foreign Language Honor Society. Every year I would go to the first meeting, but I never did anything to get points. I could have easily done the culture points, but the service points were a little more difficult to come by…
ETA: I totally agree with mizditi. My public school (graduating class of 500) was amazing, and I am very glad I went there. I realize I’m very fortunate, and you may not have the same situation, but you shouldn’t consider private automatically better than public.
I wish I focused more on academics (especially math) then I wouldn’t be so distressed about whether or not I’m gonna get into my dream colleges. That’s really the only HUGE thing.
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Well, I would’ve worked a lot more on my ECs and planned all my tests :((
I wish I made out with more girls LOL
I wish I could have told my Dad to suck it and not play ANY sports. I now realize sports are absolutely worthless and a complete 100% waste of time. Instead, I would have taken every AP course possible, done multivariable calculus and linear algebra at a community college instead of wasting a year in AP stat, and actually research majors and know what’s out there before applying to schools. Maybe then I wouldn’t feel like I’m pathetic when it comes to math and maybe, just maybe, I would have a decent amount of confidence in my ability to do well academically in Berkeley Engineering.
I wish I had gotten involved in sports and clubs as an underclassman. I wish I had put less pressure on myself to preform well, and I wish I had taken a less challenging courseload in sophmore year (it really hurt me.) I am currently a senior in hs, and I am wishing that I had not attended a magnet school; I am wishing that I had given more time to my family/ friendships and less to studying. You’re only a teenager once. Go out, be young- but still do well in school.
I would have started appreciating my high school earlier, instead of condemning it since sophomore year when senioritis hit (yes, it hit as a sophomore). I spent too much time with my gothy friends talking about how mainstream everyone is, instead of breathing and relaxing. Now, I’m the class over-achiever, but for once, I would like to go yell my brains out at a football game.
Oh, and I would lessen my after-school weekly naps to half-an-hour, instead of what they’ve become… throwing off my sleep schedule…