The College
Maze
Search, Apply, Get Tuition Breaks, Stay on
Speaking Terms with Your Parents
CONTENTS:
SUMMER AS A RISING ELEVENTH GRADER
SUMMER AS A RISING TWELFTH GRADER
When you begin to browse through college
guides with their write-ups about individual schools, some colleges begin to
stand out, either because you have heard of them before, because they sound
exciting, or perhaps because they sound like places at which you would not want
to spend five minutes, much less four years!
Choosing a college is similar to
choosing a high school, because you select it for its curriculum and
location. But choosing a college is
more complex because you will not just attend classes there. You will also eat, sleep, live, work,
study, play, and mature into an adult there. That is why selecting a college takes
time and thought – there are so many parameters to consider.
While you investigate colleges you will
be finding out a great deal about your wants, needs and possible life
goals. This can make the college
search a very interesting culmination of your teen years. Though planning for the future can be a
bit scary because the future is unknown, take heart! It can also be exciting and fun because
your future is filled with possibilities.
You may have assumed from the time you
were quite small that you would attend college, or perhaps you simply hoped you
would be able to do so. No matter
when the idea planted itself in your mind, your final year of middle or junior
high school is the time to begin doing some long-range planning for college. Here is a basic timetable for your
college search.
MYTH: It really doesn't matter where a student goes to college.
Bright and motivated students will always find a way to get a solid education
at any decent college.
TRUTH: This puts a lot of weight on the student for initiative, and denies
the premise that class quality is determined by the motivation, intelligence,
and preparation of the students in that class. It can be lonely to be the only
student in class who is motivated or curious and wants an intellectual
experience. Professors will sometimes dumb down a class to reach unmotivated
students while the motivated ones suffer boredom.
MYTH: A great way to
save money is to spend your first two years at a nearby community college and
then transfer to a top state or private university. You'll wind up with the
same big name diploma at only a fraction of the cost.
TRUTH: Community colleges can be stifling places for bright, motivated
students. Most students there didn't go through college preparatory curricula
in high school, so they don't possess the study or analytical skills more able
students take for granted. Class cutting is rampant and increases as the term
progresses. So do drop outs. The low tuition and lack of motivation leads to
little class participation and a less academic atmosphere. Many good students
in this purgatory last only a term.
MYTH: I intend to go
on to law school (or med school or for an MBA) after I graduate college, but
tuition there can easily run over $100,000. My folks told me they'd help pay
for my law/med/MBA degree if I agree to attend an inexpensive local public
college for my bachelor's degree. That makes sense to me since it won't matter
much where I receive my undergrad degree if I get my professional degree from a
top school.
TRUTH: If you go to a mediocre college you may not develop
intellectually enough to get admitted
to a good professional school. Top graduate programs are less likely to accept
graduates from weaker colleges. And who knows? You'll be a different person
after your undergraduate studies and may choose not to go on to grad school,
and there you'll be with a bachelor's diploma from a mediocre college. Finally,
many grads take a year or more away from college before going back for the
advanced professional degree. In fact, all top MBA programs insist that you
gain some work experience before graduate study. That would allow you to save
some money or pay off some existing loans. Many employers are also willing to
pay for their employees to complete their MBA part-time while working for them.
In that case you won't even need parental support.
MYTH: Choosing a college is not that important. If I don't
like where I wind up, I can always transfer somewhere else.
TRUTH: It is better to choose your college wisely the first time around
to avoid the mental and financial hassle of transferring. How do you choose
wisely? Read the college guides, explore the college web sites and visit your
favorite campuses in person with your parents. While it's true that no college
pick is forever, and you can transfer to another college if you hate your first
pick, here are the disadvantages of transferring: Many private colleges accept
very few transfers. You lose your tuition and deposit money, credits for that
term, incur relocation expenses, and most likely will be forced back to
community college for spring term, and have to do your whole application
process all over again. (ARRGGHH! NO! Not that!) You may also be perceived as
damaged goods by other institutions, and any courses you did complete may not
transfer to a new institution. So it is best to do your college search more
thoroughly and choose the first time as carefully as you can and then be as
flexible as possible in adjusting yourself to college by negotiating your needs
and expecting the unexpected.
MYTH: Our daughter is old enough to be less dependent
on us parents for everything. It will be great experience for her to do the
lion's share of choosing which schools to apply to and prepare her application materials.
It will make her more responsible. In any case, only she knows what is best for
her, and we don't even get to talk to her very much-she is so busy with her
studies and extracurricular activities.
TRUTH: Helping your teen with his/her college search and
application process is one of the most important things you can ever do for
her. This is a much more complicated process than buying a house, for example,
because there are so many small steps and little details that need to be taken
care of. And the choice of college can be crucial to your teen's future.
This is your
golden opportunity to work together. You do not want her to get so stressed out
over school work and activities (which are always most stressful and demanding
right when the college search begins and when college applications are filled
out and sent) that she may end up hating you, or feeling bewildered as to why
you did not give more input and guidance. Work together.
In her freshman
and sophomore high school years, both you and your teen must read two or three
college guides. Both you and your teen must surf the college web sites and
order viewbooks. Both you and your teen must make lists of possible schools.
Compare the lists to see which schools match, and discuss those that did not.
In her junior
and senior years, together with your teen, come up with a list of eight to
twelve schools. Visit as many of them as is feasible. While your teen is
responsible for writing up the application answers and taking standardized
testing, you will be largely responsible for filling out the financial aid
forms. The person with the neatest handwriting should fill out the master copy
of the college application. During your teen's senior year in high school, you
might select one evening per week, or Saturday afternoons to work on the master
application together. This is a big undertaking, but it is performed in little
steps and is fairly straightforward. A busy high school student cannot do this
alone! Think of it as a family project with tasks to be assigned to each family
member.
MYTH: Our son is
perfectly happy going to "Good Ol' State U" just like his dad did. He
knows how expensive other colleges are, and he doesn't want to put too heavy a
financial burden on us. We've told him that if he goes to dad's alma mater,
we'll get him that Mustang he's been eyeing so he can come home and visit on
weekends.
TRUTH: Why do you make him feel guilty about college cost, yet
bribe him with a car to do what you want? The car's cost negates your college
saving, thus revealing your true motive: to keep him close to home. Better to
conduct a true college search, apply to eight to twelve schools, and see what
the financial aid offers look like. A private college can be competitive in
cost with a public one especially if the student does not have a car. If the
student attends a college in a major city there may be public transportation
and a car will not be needed.
Examples: Our
son Rhett attended an Ivy in a major city and did not need a car. He used
public transportation or taxis to get to and from the city airport. Our
daughter Scarlett attends a college in the boonies where public transportation
is non-existent. She depends on trains, taxis and friends with cars to get her
to and from the airport. We held out giving her a car until spring of her
junior year and only because her major demands her to be more mobile. Teens who
are accustomed to a car at home do not necessarily need one on campus. With
campus shuttles or public transportation at most colleges, personal vehicles often
sit in a campus parking lot unused.
Above we said that
selecting a college is much like selecting a high school, except on a more
complex level. Your choice of high
school is often based upon what you intend to do after you graduate from high
school. For example, if college is
your goal you select a high school that offers IB, AP, honors, or other college
preparatory curricula.
To find out what kinds of curricula
high schools offer, you listen to presentations by administrators and students
from the different high schools for which you are eligible. You attend high school “open
house” nights with your parents.
Your parents may discuss with you the possible costs of the local
private high schools and whether they could afford to send you there. You
discuss types of curricula, courses of study, transportation arrangements, and
you talk to older friends who go to the high schools. You and your parents might even make an
appointment to meet and talk with a high school guidance counselor, teacher or
coach. Then you and your parents
work together to select the high school that would best suit your needs and, in
the case of this web site, best prepare you for college.
But what does the high school process
look like from the college’s point of view? This might give you an idea of what to
stress or emphasize most in high school.
Here is what admissions officers look for from YOU, roughly in order of
importance:
1. The strength and difficulty of your
HS curriculum. Take the curriculum
that is the most challenging one available in which you think you could earn
mostly A’s and B’s.
B’s in an Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate
courses are considered more impressive than A’s in a general high school
course because material in AP and IB is presented and mastered more quickly and
is also at an advanced level to begin with.
2. Your HS grades in that curriculum
3. SATs or ACT and three SAT II subject
tests
4. College application personal essay
5. HS teacher and guidance counselor
recommendations
6. A college interview in person with
an admissions officer ( or if the college is distant you might do a phone
interview, or go to a local interview with an specially-trained alumna.)
7. Extra materials included in your
application: audition tapes, slides of artwork, writing samples, detailed lists
of activities in school organizations, or newspaper articles about your
activity or that are written by you.
Now go back to #1 above. Colleges first look for the strength of
your high school curriculum. This means
you want to choose a HS that has challenging classes that you can do well in,
but that will not overwhelm you. If
you are in gifted middle school classes and/or earn mostly
“A’s”, you will probably want to try IB or AP classes. How do you know whether you can succeed
in them if you do not at least try them?
You can always switch to an easier curriculum if you become overwhelmed,
but we encourage you to aim as high as you can from the beginning of high school
to give yourself the widest range of possibilities for college coursework and
admissions. Those students who aim
high often persist with determination and rise
to those high expectations. Those
who aim low to start generally stay low; they produce lower quality work, tend
to be satisfied with that, and believe they can do no better. This is not a formula for success in
school or in life. Aim high.
As opposed to high school, at college
you will not just attend classes and leave at the end of the day. You will also eat, sleep, study, do research
in the libraries, attend meetings and games, take part in activities, play
athletics, socialize, do your laundry, clean your room (at least before your
family visits!), and perhaps even work at a part-time campus job. How can you find out about these
different aspects of life at colleges? What characteristics are common to
most colleges and how do colleges differ?
There are
certain characteristics that will help you sort through fact and fiction about
colleges, both generally and individually. These characteristics are things such as
a college’s location, climate, cost per year, average SAT scores of its
students, number of students, percentage of males and females, faculty-student
ratio, acreage or size of the campus, number and types of dorms, dining
options, campus crime and security, proximity to interstate highways and public
transportation, percentages of minority students, and the campus social and
political climate.
Here’s how to find out this kind
of information:
1) buy two or three college guides at
any bookstore in autumn of your high school sophomore or junior year. They usually come out in late summer or
early fall for the new crop of HS seniors who will be applying that autumn, but
YOU, a savvy college shopper, want to read them before that, a year or two
ahead. The information in them will
not change a whole lot by the time you are a senior and ready to apply.
Such guides are The Insider’s Guide to Colleges by Yale Daily News, The Fiske Guide,
Barrons’ Top 50: An Inside Look
at America’s Best Colleges by
Tom Fischgrund, Editor, and The Best 311
Colleges by The Princeton Review. These are the four we bought and used at
home in our college search. They
give you statistics made public by the colleges, but they also offer critiques
of each college that are NOT written by college officials. The writers are independent and
therefore give you the unvarnished truth about the colleges – the good,
the bad, and the so-so. Also useful
for more specialized purposes are:
A is for Admissions: The Insider’s
Guide to Getting Into the Ivy League
and Other Top Colleges by
Michele A. Hernandez. An insider’s look at how Ivy League and other
admissions offices work.
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Helpful web sites:
Collegiate Choice Walking Tours is a company that tapes student-led tours at
colleges and offers them for sale. They ask great questions. We
have found them invaluable. They cost about $11 a tape. Order them
at www.collegiatechoice.com. This is much cheaper than visiting a distant
school, and helps you decide if it is worth a visit in person later
on. Swap and share them. Donate them to the high school after your
children graduate.
www.acm.edu/admiss/essay.htm Writing the college application essay tips.
www.personalessay.com Invaluable tips on writing the personal college
essay, do’s and don’ts, clichés to avoid, weasel speak,
redundancies, topics to avoid, etc.
College guides tell you things like:
Does this
college offer two or three courses of study or majors in which you are
currently interested in high school?
You do not have to have a specific idea of college majors yet, but say,
for example, you do your best work as a high school sophomore in science and
history. So take a look at the
types of science majors the college offers, such as biology, chemistry, physics,
neurochemistry, psychology, or forestry.
History majors might include archeology, Classical history, American
history, European history, Asian history, gender studies, American studies or
political science (also called government).
The guides will tell you many other
things about a college: do the students consume a lot of drugs and
alcohol? What is the dining hall
food like? What is the campus
attitude toward minorities, such as foreign, African-American, Latino or GLBT
students? Are the financial aid
packages generally good? Does
the campus empty out on weekends or is there a packed calendar of events that
sound interesting to you? Is there
campus crime? Does this college
have a good academic reputation? Is
there a blue-light telephone security system throughout the campus? Are the dorms impersonal high
rises, gracious Victorian homes, or
flat-roofed, low and long buildings from the 1950’s? What percent of students are from
private versus public high schools?
Is the campus atmosphere liberal or conservative? What kinds of other adjectives describe
the students: preppy, religious, artistic, activist, partier, redneck, urban or
“Goth”?
Does it sound like you’d fit
in? College guides tell you all
this and much more.
You want to limit the number of
surprises you have when you get to any campus, and the way to do that is to
learn all you can about individual colleges. Buy three of four different college
guides and begin browsing in your spare time. Compare and contrast the statistics and
the write-ups. Soon certain
colleges will start to stand out as good matches or faulty ones. The stats usually match up pretty well
from guide to guide, but what the write-ups say often point up subtle
differences that can be telling.
Using stick-on colored marker flags or
other markers that won’t fall out, mark about 20-30 colleges that sound
the most intriguing to you. This is
not a completed list by any means.
It is just a beginning! You
will drop over half these schools later on as you find out additional
information about them, or as your needs change, and there will be others that
get added to your list as you do more reading. Here are some rules to remember as you
research different colleges:
Rule One: COLLEGES ARE NOT ALL ALIKE!!!! That is why you have to read so
much about them and visit some of them via videotape or in person.
Rule Two: Do not
automatically assume you should attend one of your parents’ alma maters
and thereby save yourself all the “work” and time of researching
colleges. You are not your
parents. And they may not realize
it, but their
Each college you apply to must satisfy
YOUR needs, not those of your folks, Uncle Fred or your best friend Lucy. If your parents give you a hard time
about this have them read this section and the whole website. They need to be educated about the
college search too, since much has changed since they went to college (if they
did, in fact, GO to college), and they will probably be the ones footing most
of the bill. However, that does not
mean they should limit your choices, give you ultimatums, or unduly influence
your choice one way or another. YOU
are the student and ultimately YOU are the one who will have to live with your
choice. And if you decide you do
not like your original choice you can always transfer. It’s a “win-win”
situation for you. Of course, if a
college is out of reach financially, that is another story. Then go to any college you can. Any college is better than no college at
all.
2) After identifying 20-30 colleges in
the college guides, next begin browsing college websites. Their internet addresses are published
in the college guides.
Rule Three: Colleges want
as many of you to apply as possible, so they can reject as many of you as
possible (how dare they, but I am not kidding!), in order to raise their
selectivity rates. A high level of
selectivity makes a college look like a picky academic powerhouse which only
selects the cream of the crop each year.
And if you get admitted you feel privileged to be part of that cream,
and you assume you’ll have a perfect college experience at
You get around the rosy pictures
colleges present by researching not only the college’s published
materials and web sites but by researching the schools in alternative sources
independent of the colleges themselves, such as the guide books listed above,
talking to students who currently attend the university whose e-mail addresses
are listed as leaders under many college club and activity home pages (college
student directories are not usually made available to the general public for
privacy reasons), and by watching videotapes of actual student-led tours of
campuses by independent companies, such as www.collegiatechoice.conm. Such videos should NEVER take the place
of an actual personal visit in deciding whether to actually attend a
college. NEVER decide to attend a
college you have not visited in person with your parents.
But DO browse the colleges’
websites, where you can find a vast amount of helpful information. Take a virtual tour to view the dorms
and landscape of the campus. Again,
keep in mind that campuses are ALWAYS photographed on sparkling, sunny days
with deep blue skies, and at the most beautiful time of year for its locale. Try to imagine the campus during a snow
storm or on a dreary day when no leaves are on the trees. Look over campus clubs and organizations
and find out which ones have e-mails of officers you can contact just to see
how big and active the club really is.
You can also ask them general questions about the college. But ask no more than three questions per
student since students often are very busy and will answer an e-mail only if it
looks like they can do so in ten minutes or less. Look over the professors’ home
pages of the majors you might be interested in, read the college catalog, look
at dining hall menus, coming campus events and exhibits, visit the chaplaincy
home page, and check out the athletic teams and intramurals.
If you still like the sound and
appearance of a college by summer as a rising junior, click on the
“Admissions” or “For Perspective Students” button. Fill out a form for more
information. This puts you on the
admissions office mailing list and voilá! You will begin to receive frequent mailings from the college, culminating
with a viewbook with an application stapled in the middle of it, early in your
high school senior year.
ALERT! ALERT! CRUCIAL TIP COMING UP!
Here is a very important tip
from our teens’ high school guidance counselor:
Make up an e-mail address strictly for
college application use and once you sign up for a college’s mailing list
as suggested above, check your e-mail every day. Your parents need to have daily access
to this e-mail address as well.
Here is the crucial part: MAKE SURE THIS E-MAIL ADDRESS IS CLEAN AND
COURTEOUS. NO PROFANITY OR
REFERENCES TO DRUGS, DRINKING OR SEX.
Use
common courtesy and good sense in selecting an e-mail name for your college
search because you want to put your best foot forward with all colleges. You want to present yourself as an
intelligent, responsible young adult, someone whom the college would be proud
to accept and have on their campus.
Your e-mail address is the very first communication you will have with
your college admissions officers.
They are the campus personnel who will decide whether to admit or reject
you, and their decision is FINAL.
You do not want them to faint dead away at their desk when they first
see your scandalous or disgusting e-mail address. Keep it clean, short and professional.
Browsing on
college web sites takes many months but you learn a lot about colleges in the
process, and a great deal about your individual needs and preferences. You will return to websites you
previously visited to find more information, and discover new colleges of
interest. Some of your original
college choices will fall by the wayside, and you will add others. This is normal because your needs are still
changing throughout high school, you learn about differences between colleges
as you research them, and you become better able to define what you want and
need in a college as you compare and contrast them.
A good time to browse college web sites
is in summer when you’re a rising sophomore and junior. By the time you are a rising senior you
will want to have your application list finalized and you’ll want to
personally visit as many of those “final pick” schools with your
parents as time and money allow.
HIGH SCHOOL EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES -- WHICH ONES
AND HOW MANY?
SUMMER AS A RISING TENTH GRADER
In your high school freshman year,
develop good study habits. Get
organized at home
and at school. Let us examine home organization
first. Learn to set your own alarm
and wake up to it each morning. It
is time to take responsibility for this.
Do not depend on your parents to wake you up and see that you make it to
school on time. Help them out a
little by getting up and out on time.
If you did not
do so in middle school now is the time to create a quiet study spot at home,
because you will have more reading and long-range assignments in high school
rather than the worksheets and short assignments more common in middle
school. This study space might be
in your bedroom or some other quiet nook.
If this is not feasible, perhaps you can find a different place to set up your study,
such as a den without a TV, a room above your garage, a parent’s home
office or exercise room, an attic, an unused third story room, or a
basement. You need some table space
beside your computer to lay out books, papers and homework supplies such as
scissors, rubber cement, white glue, ruler, pencils, pens, paper clips, tissues
and cellophane tape. Stash the
little things in a compartmented tray or stand them up in old tin cans. Use good lighting that focuses on your
work and leaves the rest of the room darker, especially if a younger sibling
shares your study space with you.
Invest in a padded, rolling desk chair with arms on it. You will be sitting in it a lot over the
next four years. Hang an afghan
over the back for chilly winter evenings.
If you do not have a desk you can buy
an old surplus office desk at a second hand furniture shop, and paint it. Or make a desk top from an inexpensive
luan door purchased at a home improvement store and paint or varnish it. Set the door on top of two old file
cabinets or stacks of bricks or cement blocks and run your electronics cords
through the doorknob hole. ALWAYS
keep at least one extra printer ink cartridge on hand, and several reams of
printer paper. You do not want to
get docked a grade for a late assignment just because you ran out of ink or
paper. If you share a bedroom with
a younger sibling you may wish to cordon off your study area with a temporary
curtain or cardboard “wall” so as not to disturb your sibling when
you are burning the midnight oil.
To get organized at school,
write down ALL club duties, meetings and practices in a daily planner. This shows your foresight, maturity and
dedication. Writing down all your commitments helps you visualize your schedule
and the time it will take to complete everything. Learn to work ahead as often as you can
to avoid time crunches. Check off assignments in your planner as you complete
them. This gives you a feeling of
accomplishment.
Now, not every new high schooler
realizes this, but when you fill out your college applications all
colleges make you tell them how many hours per week and weeks per year you took part in
each of your activities.
We’re not kidding.
Applications are that specific.
This helps admissions officers determine just how active you were in
your clubs and organizations or whether you are “padding” your
application by listing activities that you only spent a few hours per year
on. Writing down your club meetings
and activities in your planner is a perfect way to keep track of your hours per
week and weeks per year spent on your extracurricular activities. So use a planner each year throughout
high school and keep each one until you graduate. Don’t throw them out at the end of
the year. They will give you a very accurate
way to measure the number of hours per week and weeks per year you spent on
every single high school activity, sport and club. This will make your application process
so much easier since you can add them up at the end of every year and keep a
tally on the last page of the most recent year’s planner. Those hours really add up and you may be
surprised just how much time you spend on activities.
This will put you a giant step ahead of
all your peers who did not use a planner much, or who throw out each one at the
end of every school year. They will
have to rely on estimates and they will forget a lot of what they did in high
school. We will address the issue
of how many activities you need to take part in in the next section below,
“High School Activities: Which Ones and How Many?”
Begin high school by paying careful
attention to your studies. It is
much easier to maintain an “A” or “B” average than to
pull up a “C” or “D” average. If you are interested in attending a
“Top 50" or “Top 100" American college such as those
listed in US News and World Report
America’s Best Colleges annual magazine publication, the rigor of your
high school curriculum should require you to spend three to five hours per
night on homework, with “work ahead” or “catch up” time
on weekends. Otherwise you will not
have the educational background or the study and organizational skills needed to
get accepted at, or to graduate from, such a college. There is nothing that says you have to
aim that high, but we suggest you apply yourself to your studies just the same
because sometimes students do so well in high school that suddenly one of those
colleges comes within your reach, sometimes even a “Top 10" college,
with tens of
thousands of dollars in scholarships given to you that you never need to pay
back. The big money
does not just go to popular high school athletes. No!
You can get free money from colleges just for excelling academically and
artistically in high school. So if
you are bright or artistic, go, go, go!
Earn those merit scholarships.
Hey, someone is going to get them.
Why not you? It can mean a
lot to begin your working life after graduation without major college loans to
pay off, so go after that free money from colleges by studying hard and being
deeply active in just two or three activities in high school.
Find time for some relaxation each week
too. Many high school students take
Friday night or Saturday night off from homework and do something completely
different and relaxing, such as going to a movie, staying in and listening to
music, working with their favorite art medium, taking a bubble bath, going to a
coffee house or bookstore – anything that relaxes you but keeps you OUT
of mischief! Take a bike ride or
rollerblade, read for pleasure, go on a hike, go to a local art festival, or
attend worship services, whatever will renew and refresh you for the coming
week. Get some sleep, some
exercise, and eat properly too.
Meet your guidance counselor ASAP in 9th
grade and stop by periodically with any questions or just to chat a bit. Keep in mind that he or she will be
incredibly busy during the first half of the school year helping seniors with
their college applications, so do not chatter on and on. Try to have questions ready in advance
and make an appointment if you need to discuss something important. Your parents should also meet your
guidance counselor and go to him or her with any concerns as you proceed
throughout high school.
Of all people in high school, your guidance counselor is the person
you want most in your corner. Why? Your guidance counselor will be your
liaison, or “go between” between you and your colleges during the
application process. Your counselor
is also required to write a recommendation for you as part of your college
application paperwork. You will get
a better recommendation if you have studied hard, shown a commitment to
learning, and made your high school or community a better place by taking part
in a few extracurricular activities.
Earn your counselor’s trust and admiration by doing these things,
thereby proving that you are an honest, idealistic and determined person. She will feel more inclined to “go
to bat” for you if you have a problem during your admissions process if
she respects you. Work hard to earn
and keep that respect.
HIGH SCHOOL EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES -- WHICH ONES AND HOW MANY?
When academics begin to get you down,
your involvement in high school extracurricular activities that you enjoy can
help you remain engaged at school and give you a reason to get up every
morning. (So can electives.) However, some wise high school administrators
limit their freshman to only one or two activities during ninth grade so the
students do not get overwhelmed and have enough time to focus on their
academics. Schools may also limit
each upperclassman to one club or activity leadership position per year, since
they know that to be an effective officer or team captain takes a great deal of
time and attention. This also
spreads officer positions around so that a small cadre of students does not
hold all the prestige and power in a school. And remember, colleges count as most
important the difficulty of your high school curriculum and the grades you received in
that curriculum, so pay very close attention to your
studies.
How many
activities and clubs should you take part in at one time? In 10th through 12th
grades, take part in two or three clubs or organizations that you
really ENJOY, where you can make a difference in the world, build on your
talents, develop your leadership skills (this can be done even if you are not
an elected officer), and attend some county or regional conferences, festivals
or fairs. This activity might be a
sport, the school orchestra, chorus, Amnesty International, the Drama Club, the
Yearbook Staff or the French Club.
A rather disturbing trend has been
developing amongst high school students, and that is overdosing on extracurricular activities
in an attempt to beat out their peers in the college admissions
“game.” Here’s
the truth: colleges look for a deep commitment to just two or three high school activities. Do not waste your time and energy trying
to make significant contributions to six or eight activities
simultaneously. Admissions officers
know this is physically impossible.
If you take part in six or eight activities simultaneously, the depth
of your commitment will suffer since there are only 24 hours in a day and 7
days in a week.
A deep commitment to just two or three primary
clubs or activities WILL make you extremely competitive in college admissions,
even at Ivy League or “Top 50" colleges. We know that you may ENJOY six or eight activities
because they are fun or interesting, and perhaps your peers are putting
pressure on you to join certain activities along with them, activities you may
not even care for. You have to
learn to pick and choose extracurriculars that YOU find most satisfying. Don’t take part in so many
activities that time commitments begin to stress you out or sap your energy
over time. High schoolers tend to
think they’ll have time for everything but this just is not the
case. Part of becoming an adult is
picking and choosing what you want to spend your time doing, learning how to
estimate how much time certain tasks and commitments will take for you to feel
you’ve done a competent job, recognizing how much stress you are able or
willing to deal with, and then learning how to say “no” either with
tact or firmness, whichever is required.
Since you devote so many hours to just
two or three activities you will build on earlier skills and begin to gain new
levels of mastery in them. You may
earn the privilege of joining a similar activity on a more advanced level. The high school band is a good
example. If you become a good band
musician in your high school you may qualify to join county or state band. Or if your band is particularly
excellent it may audition and win a spot in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day
Parade or Rose Parade. Then you and
your fellow band members would hold many fund-raising events to pay for the
trip. Taking part in just two or three school activities enables you to build
skills and still have the extra time needed to attend such special events
reserved for those students who excel in that activity.
THIS is what college admissions
officers look for – a deep commitment that leads to higher and higher levels
of achievement and mastery, rather than spending limited amounts of time on six
or eight activities that are all over the map, just listed in an effort to make
the student look like he was highly involved. In this case, admissions readers look at
the hours and weeks spent on these activities. They may find, as they expected, that a
student with such a long list of activities was really a “jack of all
trades, but a master of none.”
Colleges look for those students who have worked hard to master
something, and it is quite amazing how skilled high school students can become
when they practice something for hours, weeks and months, whether it be
designing theater sets, playing the oboe, throwing a clay pot on a wheel, or
swimming.
The teens in our family found that
taking part in two or three activities during the school year not only gave
them time to take part in similar activities during the summer that would
enhance the skills learned in school activities, but it also gave them time to
take on a few extra short-term activities during the school year, such as
hosting a school talent show, which took just one or two rehearsals and the
evening of the event itself. An
excellent way to take part in additional activities you enjoy is to select a
few short-term activities now and then with finite time commitments. This keeps you from getting in
over your head with too many long-term activities and thus spreading yourself
too thinly.
Your love and enjoyment of any
extracurricular activity is important.
Since you will be spending many hours on just two or three activities,
select those you truly enjoy so that the hours you spend do not feel pointless
or like a thankless chore. If you
tire of a club or activity, drop it and select something else you will enjoy
more, as long as it is not a time-waster like playing video games or watching
“I Love Lucy” reruns.
Sometimes teachers react with hurt and
feel betrayed if you decide to no longer pursue “their”
activity. They may have had high
hopes for your achievement or perhaps they invested a lot of time coaching,
teaching or encouraging you. Their
ego may be involved too – they may get approval by being connected with
your success. But you cannot be
held responsible for your teachers’ feelings, only your own. Such school dilemmas are faced by
students every day and your guidance counselor has heard every one of them and
then some! She or he has the skills
to listen to your problem and your reasons without prejudgment, and will help you
negotiate a good solution amicable to all parties.
EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES AND AWARDS
LIST:
Ninth grade is the year to begin
building your high school listing of
extracurricular activities and awards on a computer file. First, anytime you win any sort of academic
award such as a principal’s award, an Elks Club award, a science fair
prize, a foreign language festival prize, a social studies fair prize, or a
math award, add it to your list.
Special awards won during high school such as a Walt Disney World
Dreamers and Doers award, or a special speech you were chosen to give at a
State Science Fair should be added as well, as long as they were awarded during
or after ninth grade. Usually
awards in nonacademic subjects such as sports or the arts are listed under
extracurricular activities.
For this extracurricular activities list,
write down the two or three activities in which you are most active. Then every two weeks during the school
year, check your planner and add any jobs or events you took part in pertaining
to each activity, adding up the hours per week. After doing this for awhile you will be
able to estimate the hours per week you spend at the activity. There will be weeks you do less and
weeks you do more. Come up with an
honest average per week. If the
activity is a full school year, that is usually 36 weeks.
For example, if you were active in the
Drama Club, make a list for that, and keep track of every type of job and event
connected with it, whether that’s set construction, stage or sound crew,
program design, prop mistress, stage manager, director, acting, costume-making,
club officers, committee chairperson, drama outreach in the community, car
washes to benefit the club, drama festivals you attended and prizes won, membership
in honorary societies such as the International Thespian Society, and so
on. If you keep up that activity
throughout high school, you will have quite a long list which you will organize
in a logical way, with sections listing acting roles, stagecraft, leadership
and so on. You will send this list
with your college applications to show admissions officers exactly how your
skills and leadership developed throughout high school in that activity.
This activities list also includes any
volunteer work done at your house of worship or in your community. Along with your personal essay, this
list will take the most time to assemble and complete for you college
applications, and you will be adding to it almost until the day you mail out
your applications. But if you begin
keeping this list in ninth grade, it will make filling out your applications a
breeze. Spend the time beginning
this list now and keeping it up to date, rather than trying to remember what
you did way back in 9th grade when you are a busy senior. That is nigh onto impossible!
Here is an
example of an extracurricular activities and awards list a student named John
has prepared for inclusion in his college applications.
EXTRACURRICULAR
ACTIVITIES AND AWARDS John
Leon Smith
54
SS
# 012-34-5678
ACTIVITIES:
Spanish
Club (9, 10, 11, 12)2 hr/wk, 36 wks/yrMember (9), secretary (10), VP (11), Pres
(12); Fiesta Night Director (12); County Spanish Festival, 1st place
translation (9), 3rd place composition (11); district Spanish Festival , 3rd
place transl. (9), 1st place composition (11), State Spanish Festival, 1st
place composition (11, 12)
Orchestra (9, 10, 11, 12)8 hrs/wk, 36 wks/yrMember (9), County Orchestra (10,
11, 12); District Orchestra (11, 12); State Orchestra (11, 12); played in
orchestra for invitational Little Rock Concert Hall Anniversary Concert (11).
Church Crucifer (9, 10, 11) 2 hours/mo., 9 wks/yr.
Carry cross during worship Member,
Spanish Immersion Camp (11) 24 hrs/day, 3 wks/yr. Camper.
Link Crew (10, 11)5 hrs/day, 5 daysGave tours to rising HS freshmen, conducted
orientation discussions with them during the first week of school.
AWARDS AND LEADERSHIP:
Secretary,
Spanish Club (10)
Vice-President, Spanish Club (11)
President, Spanish Club (12)
County Spanish Festival, 1st place translation (9), 3rd place composition (11)
District Spanish Festival, 3rd place translation (9), 1st place composition
(11)
Arkansas State Spanish Festival, 1st place composition (11)
Fiesta Night Director: I directed an evening program for middle school students
who are interested in taking HS Spanish (12)
Spanish Immersion Camp: I and another student where selected from among all the
Spanish students in our county to spend a week at a Spanish Immersion Camp at
Mirror Lake, NC. I studied Spanish language and culture. I took
classes on Pablo Picasso, flamenco guitar, and the Spanish Inquisition.
District Orchestra, bass violin (11, 12)
Arkansas State Orchestra, bass violin (12)
Bill Clinton Presidential Library Opening Ceremony Orchestra: I was selected as
one of five high school students from
Elks Club Student of the Month, February, 1999 (11)
School-wide Citizen of the Week, March 21-28, 2000 (12)
Host, Senior Awards Night Program, June 2, 1999 (11)
But what if you performed a great
number of jobs and roles in one particular activity, such as drama, orchestra,
or Amnesty International?
Then you need to make up a more detailed list of these jobs and
roles. Here is an example of an
extracurricular activity list a student, Mary, wrote for her college
application about her high school involvement in theater arts. Notice how she has organized her jobs
and roles into categories that show off her deep involvement throughout high
school. This deep involvement
is what admissions officers want to see, and Mary lays it all out like a tasty
smorgasbord! Great job!
EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITY: THEATER
ARTS Mary
Logan Hernandez
67
Cañon Drive
Avocado
Valley, CA 91234
&n