<p>1) You don’t know what you want to do yet, and so you might end up in a line of work where an elite college is only marginally beneficial, or even is detrimental.</p>
<p>It seems to me that the best strategy in this case would be to do as well as you can to give yourself as many options as possible. You might not end up wanting to go to a high-ranked school, but it’s nice to have that option. I’d rather choose to go to a lower-ranked school than be forced to because of my grades, y’know?</p>
<p>You need to try new things that interest you. If you don’t like an activity you’re doing, I urge you to quit. If you aren’t socializing with your peers because you’re trying to squeeze in lots of ECs on top of your advanced course homework, please stop.</p>
<p>I’m not socializing with my peers because I was socially inept to begin with, and although that’s a stereotype I think it’s true for at least some of the people who are on here obsessing over getting into selective colleges.
Studying gives you something to do, something to be good at. Also, “I have homework” is a better excuse for not going to a dance than “I don’t know how to talk to people.”
If I didn’t care about college admissions, I wouldn’t do extracurriculars at all. I have interests in things, but without the motivation of college admissions, my pathological shyness would have kept me from pursuing them. I used to believe that you could get into a good college with good grades alone, and so I didn’t see the point of putting myself through the stress of joining clubs when I preferred to go home and sit in my room.
I agree that people shouldn’t do things they hate solely for college apps, but “just do what you love!” didn’t really work for me. </p>
<p>you’ll build genuine relationships with your teachers</p>
<p>General question: what does this mean exactly? At my school, the teachers just ask for your resume and then regurgitate it in their recommendation letter. I was complaining about this to my GC and I said I participated in class all the time so I should be able to get more “personal” recommendations. He asked if I talked to my teachers outside of class and I said I didn’t because I thought it was unprofessional/weird.
Is it? What do you have to do to get good recommendations?</p>