<p>I want to know what extracurricular activities I should participate in in order to be accepted to a prestigious university with a history major.
I am going to take all the history related classes my school offers (ap world, ap us, ap human geo, ap gov, even ap macro and micro economics) as well as participating in the national history bee and bowl, but I was wondering what else I can do to emphasize my interest in history.</p>
<p>The colleges I want to apply to ate
Rice
Vanderbilt
Emory
Brandeis
Ucd
Ucsd
Wake forest
And other competitive schools</p>
<p>Take a well rounded high school curriculum (of course, in addition to all of the history and social studies courses):</p>
<ul>
<li>4 years of English composition and literature (writing skills are needed; literature may relate to history of the time it was written)</li>
<li>math to precalculus or higher, statistics if available</li>
<li>all of biology, chemistry, and physics (perhaps you may be interested in history of science)</li>
<li>highest level possible of a foreign language, preferably relating to your interest in history (e.g. Spanish if your interest is history of Spain and/or Latin America)</li>
<li>art and/or music (perhaps history of art)</li>
</ul>
<p>Whoops I forgot to mention I took ap art history!</p>
<p>I am very bad at science and it is by far my weakest subject so I have taken
Regular bio in 9th grade
Regular chem in 10th ( didn’t offer ap at that time)
And regular physics now</p>
<p>Our school offers ap physics and ap chem but not honors.
I will take ap environmental science though</p>
<p>Also I’m in Spanish 4 but I hate Spanish but I also have done Russian 2
Should I go to ap Spanish?</p>
<p>Regular of all three sciences should be fine for a broad background in science (and as prerequisites to college science courses if you choose to take them).</p>
<p>For your choice of foreign languages, consider what may be most relevant to the history area of your choice, in terms of reading primary source documents. If US history, Spanish may be more relevant if you focus on the history of the southwestern US, while Russian may be more relevant if you focus on diplomatic history in the 20th century.</p>
<p>Having calculus may allow you to take a more in-depth statistics course, should you need it for social studies research.</p>
<p>It looks like your overall high school course selection is fine.</p>
<p>If you want to be a lawyer, consider what foreign language may be of use in the area of law you are interested in. For example, Spanish is obviously useful if you want to do immigration law for people from Latin America, or international business law for businesses with operations in Latin America.</p>
<p>Be aware, however, of the problematic job prospects for lawyers from non-top-14 law schools.</p>
<p>Aside from the usual academic preparation for top colleges, you can be involved in any type of extra circulars that interest you. </p>
<p>If you want to do history related projects you might start with your local historical society and get involved. You might have museums within reach that have classes or projects you can join or internship opportunities. You might get involved with an oral history project or do one on your own. There are guidelines on the web, here’s one.
[Africans</a> in America | Youth Activity Guide | How to Do Oral Projects](<a href=“http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/educational/yag/yaghow.html]Africans”>Africans in America | Youth Activity Guide | How to Do Oral Projects)</p>
<p>Imagine Magazine has themed issues that usually have a page where you can learn more and get involved in the issues’ theme. I don’t know if they have had one on History (an upcoming issue will be on Law), but they have a resource page you can browse. They also accept book recommendations, if you find an interesting history book. Sometimes they will invite you to turn that rec into an article.
[Opportunities</a> & Resources | JHU CTY](<a href=“http://cty.jhu.edu/imagine/resources/]Opportunities”>http://cty.jhu.edu/imagine/resources/)</p>
<p>Just a suggestion, but since your college list contains only universities, but you ultimately aim to be a history major followed by law school, take a look at similarly ranked (or higher) Liberal Arts Coleges. Maybe they’re not for you (too small, too rural, only Div III sports, etc.) but you should at least take a look at them, since in many ways, they’ll give you exactly what you want, but with far more professor interaction and often a much more intense academic environment. Plus, no pesky grad students teaching or hogging all the good research.</p>
<p>D is going to be pre-med, and when we started this search two years ago, I swore she was going to wind up at one of the big universities, but not Ivy. Through a chance meeting at a college fair, she decided to take a look at LACs and is now pretty much fixated on the NESCAC or similar schools. She’ll be able to attend a much higher ranked school, get the professor interaction she loves, much smaller classes (bio and chem will be a max of 50 vs. 400), much better food, and an alumni network that is incredibly tight. Find an alumni of one of these schools, mention you’re interested and they will be all over you making sure you see everything and everyone at their school.</p>
<p>So if you happen to go visit Brandeis, go look at Tufts (just a little bigger than most LACs, but still a NESCAC school), or head over to Amherst or up to Bowdoin or down to Wesleyn. Going to see UCSD, the Claremont colleges aren’t far. If at Wake Forest, Davidson is an hour away. Again, maybe they aren’t for you, but you should take a look.</p>
<p>Almost all of Emory’s humanities courses are quite small and there’s ample interaction between professors and students. Emory alums are spread throughout the US and there are frequent alumni get togethers. It also has the added benefit of being able to offer a greater diversity of history courses with top ranked professors who are more than willing to work with students.</p>
<p>I think Emory and Tufts are similar in that regard, they’re basically LACs that decided to add a few grad schools, but still have that smaller feel. University of Rochester is also similar.</p>
<p>All three are more urban, whereas the LACs tend to be rural, with the exception of Haverford and the Claremont schools.</p>
<p>I suppose you just forgot, but have you taken AP European history? If not, can you take it online or through Dual Enrollment?
You could volunteer/get involved at your local history museum (or regular museum, especially if it displays artifacts). Become a docent, work with specialists.
See if you can take Archeology 101 at a community college (perhaps next semester, or during the summer). Participate in a dig if there’s one nearby.</p>
<p>I second the suggestion of looking into LACs.</p>
<p>Our school doesn’t offer ap European history but there’s like a 25 percent chance they will offer it next year. If so I will take it, but what is dual enrollment?</p>
<p>I’m going to voluteer at the museum of tolerance if that’s good!</p>
<p>I also don’t really want to go to a small lac school and would rather go to a school like emory which still gives individual attention to students especially to nonpopular majors like history</p>
<p>Dual enrollment refers to college courses for which you get both high school and college credit.</p>
<p>Note that grades earned in college courses taken while in high school do count toward your GPA for applying to law school, even though grades normally do not become part of your GPA at your undergraduate college (unless you attend the exact same college). So if you take college courses while in high school, try to get A or A+ grades in them (note that law schools count A+ grades higher than A grades when calculating GPA, even though many colleges do not).</p>
<p>I don’t think there are any special ECs you should do to demonstrate interest in history. You’re applying to undergrad, not graduate school. The colleges on your list admit promising college students in general, not just because they are focused on one major. So do whatever feels interesting to you.</p>