First off you congrats on thinking about what you want to do and wanting to be proactive in preparing yourself.
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Set aside thoughts of Northwestern or any specific college until after Sophomore year. Remember your interest in NW is based on your limited exposure to what’s out there. If you’re interested in learning more, check out some other schools Online. Look at some LACs, look at all your state universities, look at schools in the city or out in the country. Think about what you like and don’t like about each one.
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Keep up your grades! This is your number one priority right now. It’s OK that your school doesn’t offer many high level classes, but make sure you are taking the appropriate classes. Even if you want to be a writer, most schools want to see that you took 4 years of science (2 labs), 4 years of math, 3-4 years of a language…
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Pursue your passions, this does not mean you have to pay to attend some summer workshop. If you are interested in Journalism? Write for your school newspaper, or write for your local paper, tie in your family and do research on struggles of veterans in the Chicago area… If you are interested in creative writing, maybe look to see if your local community college hosts and workshops or summer classes that would be cheap. Submit your writings to writing contests, magazines.
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Do something that is purely for you! Whether that’s a sport, collecting butterflies, binging on cheesy sci-fi movies, eating pizza.
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Read, read, read. This is outside of any books required for school. It will help improve your writing, help prepare you for standardized testing, helps you with your college essays, and exposes you to different thoughts and ideas.