I am currently a freshmen in high school. High school so far has been a very tough experience for me, however I am trying to improve day by day. I just had a couple questions about college admissions. First of all, what do colleges look in an applicant? Also, what activities and extracurricular look good to colleges? I ask this because currently I am very passionate about leadership and public speaking, but I am worried that this is not enough because of a flaw that I have on my disciplinary record (honor code).
You keep posting about the same issue, your honor code. Please, please, please, you are stressing yourself out- relax. College is FAR off, and what you should focus on right now is keeping your grades up, finding extracurriculars that you are passionate about (without choosing them on the basis of do they look good for college) and spending time with friends/family. HS is a marathon, not a sprint.
Please do a google search, or do a search here, or read the pinned threads in all the forums. This question is so general and is answered in some form or another every day, here and elsewhere. Read the pinned thread in the chances forum about what ECs are good.
Colleges want good grades, good test scores, and involvment in school and community, in a nutshell. You are a freshman, you have years to research and figure out how to present the best version of you when the time comes.
P.S., talk to you counselor about the honor code infraction. None of us know the cirucmstances and you need to stop fretting.
Agree, this is your second post about the honor code violation. When you meet with your guidance counselor next see if this will even make it to the transcript sent to colleges. And if it does there is an additional comment section on college applications where you can very briefly explain that it was for a freshman mistake.
You are only a freshman – you need to recognize that HS should be an experience in and of itself – a time of learning and growth and not just a 4 year college application prep experience. It is good to take school seriously and know that college will be on your horizon, but it is too early to start college planning.
In the meantime you should focus on:
–Working hard, learning, and doing as well as you can in the most challenging curriculum you can manage.
–When the time comes study for standardized tests.
–Continue your involvement in activities you care about and work towards making meaningful contributions to those activities. If they are in the public speaking area that is just fine.
–Enjoying spending time with your family and friends.
I would highly recommend that you get off of CC until your junior year.
Check out “How to be a High School Superstar” by Cal Newport.
“The basic message of the book is this: Don’t wear yourself out taking as many classes as you can and being involved in every club and sport. Instead, leave yourself enough free time to explore your interests. Cultivate one interest and make it into something special that will make you stand out among the other applicants and get you into the toughest schools, even if your grades and scores aren’t stellar. Newport calls this the “relaxed superstar approach,” and he shows you how to really do this, breaking the process down into three principles, explained and illustrated with real life examples of students who got into top schools: (1) underscheduling—making sure you have copious amounts of free time to pursue interesting things, (2) focusing on one or two pursuits instead of trying to be a “jack of all trades,” and (3) innovation—developing an interesting and important activity or project in your area of interest. This fruit yielded by this strategy, an interesting life and real, meaningful achievements, is sure to help not only with college admissions, but getting a job, starting a business, or whatever your goals.”