Advice for sophomore?

mikemac
Tue, 17 Apr 2012 19:15:58 +0000

It wouldn’t hurt to read thru a book on college admissions so you understand now what adcoms look for, rather than finding out after the fact. If you have some time this summer a book to read, for the insight it gives into what admission committees are looking for, is the book “The Gatekeepers”. The author spent a year inside the admissions office at Wesleyan (a top LAC). The book is not a “how-to” guide, but it will show you what the adcoms at very selective schools are thinking when they evaluate candidates.

Having said that, I’d put even more emphasis on suggesting you don’t put all your energy into focusing on college. Not even most. It is an important goal, to be sure, but there is a lot of life to be lived in the next two years! Making every decision turn on how it will affect your chances for college, whether it be as big as which school to pick or as small as going to the mall with some friends vs. studying some more, is not the way to go. As a HS student it might be hard to have perspective on this, but these are the last few years you’ll be living at home and seeing your family every day, the last few spent daily with kids you have have known your whole life, and so on. There’s a reason nostalgic books and movies in which the characters revisit their childhood in some manner are so popular with the public. Hard as it may be to realize when you’re parents just won’t be reasonable or the kids as school seem clique-y and phony, there IS something of value in these years, something you’ll never be able to recapture. So don’t live every moment planning for some day 2+ years off, take time to smell the roses too!