<p>hey guys, i'm new to the site, and i just have a few questions. i am currently a freshman at a small public high school in new jersey. after visting yale with my brother, who is prespective student, i decided that it was my dream school, and i would do whatever it takes to get in. what should i do to start preparing for my application? i am currently taking the hardest schedule offered, getting all A+, and preparing for the SATs. on practice tests, i am scoring between 2000-2100 most often, with my highest scores being writing and math. what can i do to bring up the critical reading? also, what extra-curriculars should i get in to. i am currently class president, varsity academic team member, varsity math league member, a member of FBLA, Spanish Club, and i'm running a charity which sends school supplies and books to an impoverished school in Nicaragua, which has raised over $2500. also, i am running an online business involving sports cards and memorabilia, which have been showing consistent profits in the $1000s. what else can i do? i understand that it is very hard to get in to Yale, and i want to be as prepared as possible when it comes time to apply. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, and good luck to all those applying for the Class of 2014!
thanks a lot!</p>
<p>My advice at such a young age ( well really only 4 years younger) is to get involved in as many things as possible so that you can try and discover your PASSION! Don’t do a ton of ECs in order to pad your resume or what you think Yale would like to. Try new things and focus on those things you discover you love, and drop the things you are not interested in. You’ve obviously spent a lot of time thinking about your future plans, but do the things you love to do and enjoy your high school experience before it goes by!! Good Luck;)!</p>
<p>It’s GREAT to see you’re thinking about college at this age. I didn’t have the fortune of learning at such a young age like you. Try your absolute hardest in school. My standard is anything less than a 98 is unsatisfactory, I recommend you set yourself to a similar or higher standard. Additionally, like Collegestress16 said, find your passion and then pursue. I was fortunate enough to know my passion, music, for most of my life and so I’ve done a ton music related stuff not even thinking of college, just for fun. Enjoy your life, but if you keep your eye on the goal of college you should be good. Best of luck! As far as SATs are concerned, you’re a freshman and you’re scoring 2000-2100, that’s fantastic. Once junior year hits (do as much of your SAT testing in Junior year as you can) you will be a lot more mature and definitely of a higher mental caliber and you will do better. Don’t worry about SATs now.</p>
<p>Try hard and you will do well.</p>
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<p>Get this idea out of your head ASAP. Sure, do your best at what you like to do and apply to Y when the time comes. But the idea of a dream school is both simplistic and an invitation to disappointment. There are many institutes of higher learning that can offer you more academically and socially than you could ever take advantage of in 4 years, find them and you’ll be happy and successful no matter which one you attend.</p>
<p>I agree with entomom’s advice. Never get your heart set on any one school, or you’re asking for disappointment.</p>
<p>However, I disagree with a lot of the rest of the advice in this thread. If your goal is to get into a given school (instead of enjoy yourself), I think you really should resume whore. If you can find something that you love doing that you can put all of your time into (at CC, it’s called a passion), then go for it. If not, pad the hell out of your resume. You’ve got a good start. Nail as many standardized tests as you can. Found/prez as many organizations as you can. Join everything that you can do well in (and hopefully get some recognition for). You can get in just doing whatever you want, but if you are dead set on maximizing your chances, resume padding is the way to go.</p>
<p>Run! Get off this site while you still can!</p>
<p>jk…?</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice guys. At this moment, I’m enjoying all that I do, and really just loving high school. But as far as extra curriculars, which ones hold the most weight? I would think the presidency of my class, and my foreign service will be pretty good, as well as my guitar playing (7 years), but just wondering what else is good to be involved in.</p>
<p>I’m in agreement with entomom but have some more advice: </p>
<p>Chill out about college and enjoy high school without thinking about college. Don’t get yourself into this pattern. You don’t want to be on fast forward so much, thinking about college all through high school, thinking about grad school throughout the entire 4 years of college, thinking about employment throughout the entire time you are at grad school, thinking about a promotion before you enter the workforce etc. Not everything requires strategic planning and maneuvers. And to be honest, it makes people really dull and boring to talk to. They also come off as arrogant.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t worry about which extra-curricular activities hold the most weight. It is really not as important as you think. Do you think if there were two equal apps, yet one was a state champion debater and one was a state champion chorister, the debater would necessarily get in over the chorister?</p>
<p>As far as critical reading goes: read a lot of books. Read for enjoyment. Do not only read things that will look good on college apps if they ask (like Columbia), but then again do not only read things like twilight. Closer to the time you take the SAT, get a stack of critical reading workbooks and do every last question and practice test. And above all do not forget your sat IIs are just as important as your SAT reasoning test.</p>
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<p>Sound advice, and I’d add, read the New Yorker and faithfully look up all the words you don’t know and make flash cards for them if necessary.</p>
<p>Become a student athlete. Admissions counselors like to see vivacious youngsters that can contribute more than a well written paper to their institutions. Also, the sheer time involved eliminates much of the time you’d otherwise spend procrastinating and fooling around. You’ll be healthier and hopefully less stressed because of playing a sport. And there’s the fact that kids on sports teams are often in the public eye, and as such you’d be able to maintain your position as class president even as contenders arise your junior and senior year. Definitely take the time to get to know your core academic teachers, sincere recommendations are the key when it comes to gaining admittance to the top schools.
High SAT scores as a freshman are promising because they’ll rise naturally. If you want to raise your CR score, I’d recommend taking a literature appreciation or creative writing course this summer so that you can naturally increase your vocabulary, thus improving your score. Also, if you’re not already, start taking a foreign language. Spanish is commonplace nowadays, if you can try German or Latin.
Don’t waste your summers. At the very least, work or volunteer during the summer following your freshman year; following your sophomore and junior years you should definitely participate in a academic summer program to demonstrate your interests in a field and give you clarity on a possible major. Because you’re already involved in foreign affairs, a trip abroad might be beneficial to you. Summers are a time to take a break from school, but you’ll be behind if you spend 3 months on the couch.
I agree with participating in a diverse array of ECs, but as mentioned above, they need to be meaningful to YOU, not the person you think Yale wants you to be. Thousands of valedictorian class presidents are rejected from top schools, sometimes a honest essay about the days you went home with shredded fingers from working on a VEX Robot is more compelling than a description of your “life changing” experience at [insert “prestigious” conference]. High school is about building meaningful relationships, having good times, and learning what it takes to make it through life. Going through the years while weighing options exclusively by how they’ll affect your college admissions is a sad way to live. You’ll find tha</p>