Hi All,
I am doing my sixth grade in a magnet school in Nevada and I love Math and Robotics.
I do good in academics, can you help me on what are the right things to do when so i get good chances of getting into UPEN M&T program or MIT Engineering when its time for my college.
Please advice, thanks for helping!
No one has a good chance of getting in.
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You’re in 6th grade? Here’s what you do:
In other words: take time to be a kid, but also be intentional about learning and growing. Don’t have an eye on a particular school or even a particular career now. After you’ve given yourself a few years, then it will be time to think about what schools will serve you well, and you’ll have the maturity to know that you can achieve your goals by following any number of paths.
This is excellent advice, OP. Don’t miss out on the cool and interesting things in 7th and 8th grade because you are focused on something very far down the road.
M&T is great. But you may find something and somewhere else to fall in love with by senior year. And that’s a good thing!
Ditto on “be a kid and enjoy your early teen years”. It’s way too early to be worrying about posturing for college half a decade down the road. Also going to guess that perhaps English is not your first language. Even if it is, I am going to delicately suggest that perhsps putting a little greater emphasis into correct grammar and sentence structure would be wise at this point so that when you do write essays, they are eloquent and well written.
thanks, done!
You’re in 6th grade, man, and you have no idea what you will want by 7th grade. You will go through so many changes, both physical and mental, by the time you start college, that you have no idea now what you will want then.
My kid at 6th grade was an entirely different person than the person she was when she was applying to colleges. During middle school she was in robotics, math clubs, and orchestra, in high school she was in activism, dance, and science, and she ended up majoring in neuroscience in college. She also went through periods in which she was focused on fine arts, on creative writing, and on other things.
Give yourself the space to be able to explore all the things that are out there, and which will be available for you in middle school and in high school. As long as you don’t forget about the importance of your academics and of being engaged in activities and interests, college will take care of itself.
You should read this thread - the responses are relevant for you as well: Thinking about college
Here is a version of what I write for kids who are just starting high school, so it goes even more so for you:
College admission is not a target, college admission is not a goal, college admission is not a prize. College is the one of the possible ways to continue your education once you have finished high school. The college you choose and those which choose you will be based on what you did in high school.
You should not be planning your middle school and high school education in order to “qualify” for admission to some perceived “dream” college or colleges. You should should plan your middle school and high school education to get as much as you can out of school, to get some idea what you want to do in your life, to see what you are capable of doing, and to figure out who you are (at least as much as is possible).
Your school plans should be based on your interests as well. If science interests you and you want a science future, choose the most rigorous science courses that you high school has available. Same for social sciences, humanities, art, etc. If you continue to find engineering to be interesting, try to see in you can attend camps for engineering geeks or robotic geeks. Join clubs like VEX robotics.
In another five years, by the time you are a junior in high school, you will have a better idea what you want to do for your next step in you education, and THEN you should be looking which colleges will be the ones that best fit these steps.
You match your college selection to your high school education and achievements, you don’t try to match your education and achievements to your pre-selected colleges.
Agree with all of the above posts so I won’t rehash that advice.
Adding that you should get that idea of a dream school/dream program out of your mind right now. In your example of Penn M&T, that is a program which gets tons of absolutely outatanding applicants but enrolls 50 - 60 students annually. Recognize that there are hundreds of wonderful colleges out there where you can have an amazing experience and get where you want to go in life.
My son changed his desires four times in 11th and 12th grade. So you might change 14 times by then.
Do well in school. By that I mean learn the material, not just get good grades abs things build.
Otherwise, be a kid.
If in 11th grade you have strong rigor, great grades, a strong test score and solid ECs, you can know taking a shot is realistic. But realistic means 1/20 to 1/40 odds.
Also know these schools will likely be well over $100k a year in 7 years. Many don’t get need aid so even if you get in, families may say heck no.
For now, don’t think about college. It’s very stressful and you don’t need that at 11 years old.
Good luck.
While you might change your mind about your “dream college” later on, what’s undeniable right now is the fact that you like math and robotics. So, go deep into that - join your school’s MATHCOUNTS and robotics teams, and develop your math, programming, and robotics skills.
Coding and Computational Thinking with a Virtual Robot - Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy - Carnegie Mellon University - if you want a way to practice robotics without a physical robot, this program from CMU costs $9. You could also ask the robotics teacher which programming language their team uses and learning the basics of that: Introduction — FIRST Robotics Competition documentation
Here are some good resources for MATHCOUNTS:
High school teacher here, also FIRST former coach and current referee and judge. (Nothing against VEX, just not as familiar.)
Read a lot. Write journals (in complete sentences with proper grammar). Do mathcounts for sure. This is the second half of FIRST season so find the local FTC league tournament or regional championship events, observe the teams, apply to join one for the next season. Spend two seasons (starting this summer through 7th and 8th grades) on the team, learn everything (design, build, code, research, management, communication, PR, marketing, etc.). When you get to high school, form a team and lead them, not necessary to success but definitely to overcome a lot of obstacles. This is a path of many FIRST Dean’s List finalists and winners. Look up Dean’s List and see if the winners inspire you.