I am entering into 9th grade at a prestigious private high school on the West Coast. I know this is early to start planning for college/university but I am highly driven and want more insight from the CC community on how I can optimize my chances and what strategies I should implement throughout my high school years. Also if you know of a college that would be a good match for me please let me know.
Demographics:
US citizen
Type of high school: Private Preparatory (~20% acceptance rate)
GPA, and Test Scores
Middle school GPA: 4.0 all years. No weighted since my middle school had no honors.
State testing percentiles (NWEA): English, 95th; Math, 96th; Science, 99th
Placed into all honors classes available.
Language other than English: Latin
Visual or performing arts: Double bass (primarily orchestral, but also jazz). I went to Interlochen this summer and studied at Idywilld last.
Other academic courses: Invited to advanced optional math program through school.
Awards
Caroline D. Bradley Scholarship Finalist
Library summer writing contest 1st place winner in age division
Student of the year awards (given through middle school): 7th grade, Math; 8th grade, Science and also Music. Also ~10 student of the month awards (various classes).
County science fair honorable mention in microbiology (mycology project)
Extracurriculars
Mycology: I have studied mycology for 8+ years extensively. I write my own fungi local fungi newsletter with 120+ subscribers. Avid member of city mycological society (strong connection with the society’s president). I have access to local state university’s microbiology lab equipment via connection with a microbiology professor. I was asked to lecture one of the oldest gardening clubs in the nation on the role of fungi in gardens (being the club’s youngest ever speaker).
Double Bass: Studied at Interlochen and Idyllwild over summers. In local youth orchestra+ highest level orchestra at high school+ jazz band.
Teen council: Founding member of local library’s teen council. I helped write and develop a zine included library historical archives.
You’re a ninth grader. Enjoy your life. Don’t stress to the point that you can’t enjoy yourself because you never get these years back. Yes, do well in school and make friends.
Now, the standard advice is there - take a rigorous course load - to the point you can handle it. It sounds like you are strong in math - so that’s great. Science is another important subject.
It sounds like you will study Latin…whichever language you study, do it all four years. Same with social science (at least 3), English and math. You don’t need to be a superstar - but you need to do what you can do - up through Calc, not beyond.
You play bass - great. If you enjoy it, keep doing it. Find another activity or two.
Then that’s it - do your best and come back in a few years.
btw - your interests may or may not change but believe it or not, the Ivies or T8 are not necessarily best for your interest.
One step at a time - be the best you that you can be - but enjoy being you!!!
You needn’t be a robot or machine. You need to be happy, have enjoyment, and be the best student you can without over stressing yourself - and then things will work out as they should.
You appear to be a talented student, but as an incoming 9th grader, it is way too early to think about college. You don’t have any HS GPA and you have no standardized testing. More importantly, you need to recognize that HS should be an experience in and of itself – a time of learning and growth and not just a 4 year college application prep experience.
It is good to take school seriously and understand that college will be on your horizon, but for now, that is where thoughts of specific colleges should end. I would highly recommend that you get off of CC until your junior year.
Over the next years you should focus on:
–Working hard, learning, and doing as well as you can in the most challenging curriculum you can manage.
–When the time comes, study for standardized tests.
–Getting involved in activities you care about and working towards making meaningful contributions to those activities.
–Enjoying time with your family and friends.
When the time comes (junior year) honestly asses your academic stats (including GPA, standardized tests, course rigor) as well as your financial needs and apply to a wide range of reach, match, and safety schools that appear affordable (you will have to run a net price calculator for each school you consider) and that you would be happy to attend. Your private preparatory HS guidance counselors will likely be your best source of advice.
I expect that you will need to expand your horizons past the hyper-competitive schools. Understand that there are many fantastic colleges where you will be able to have a great 4 year experience and get where you want to go in life.
This classic advice from MIT is really as good as it gets for kids at your stage:
One of the basic points made there is you should really be prioritizing getting the most out of your upcoming years, developing in all the important ways as a person, and doing things you truly find meaningful. That is what thriving in high school looks like, and selective colleges like applicants who thrived in high school because they are a great bet to do it all again in college.
In terms of good colleges to consider, it would be sad if you did not develop and change a lot over the next few years. So it would be sad if we knew right now which colleges would be the best fit for you, indeed if college itself is even the right next step for you.
But you truly do not need to finalize your list until like January of your senior year, assuming you do want to go to college right away. That is so, so long from now. So just focus on what is right in front of you for now, and when the time comes it can be a lot of fun figuring out what you really want in a college experience, and which colleges are the best fits for you.
It’s way too early for you to identify colleges and especially these elite ones. Your HS GPA, SAT or ACT scores, ECs, LOR, etc will be very important factors in determining your college application list.
PLUS…you are attending a private high school, and usually these schools know what students need to do to optimize their college prospects.
You need to keep an open mind right now…and be open to exploring many different courses of study. Even in college, many (if not most) students change majors, and multiple times too.
Please make the most of your high school experiences. Enjoy what you do. Look for things that pique your interest. Do activities you enjoy. Get the best possible grades you can get.
Set up your schedule to keep your options open. You don’t want to get to senior year and find you haven’t taken prerequisites for classes you want.
This also means staying broad at the beginning.
Be open to new opportunities snd experiences. It’s amazing how often people find a passion without really looking.
Be open to new people. You are all on an exciting journey together and were granted admission because you each bring someone to the community. Enjoy this and learn from it.
Connect with your teachers. Private schools tend to make this easy.
Keep a bullet journal-- noting why you chose the courses and activities you did and then checking in on how the expectation matched the reality, what you like, what you don’t, etc. This will help you make better decisions for yourself going forward and may even end up including some inspiring for college essays. You won’t be able to do everything - this will serve as a reminder of what is genuinely exciting you.
Last, be present. These are 4 really important years of your life, not an extended admissions test for college. It sounds like you’ll be spending them in a rich environment-- immerse yourself in it for what it is.
I note both of the major activities my S24 is currently doing in college, he started in HS because a friend asked him to try it out. Of course maybe he would be doing something else instead, but this path is definitely working out for him so far.
Life really does work that way–you just don’t know what will really click for you until you have tried it.
You are not applying to college anywhere for at least 3 more years, at which point the future “T8” might bear little resemblance to the current T8.
You are on the right track. Just keep doing what you are doing. No one can give you chances for anything right now.
Adding that if you continue with playing bass through these HS years, keep a record of the repertoire and performances you are playing. We simply kept a file of hard copy concert and recital programs. But you can just keep a log as well. Some schools will ask for a music resume and repertoire list. And it can be challenging to look back and recreate it.
It’s cool that you have such specific and distinctive interests already.
At this stage, I would think less about specific colleges and more about how you might leverage and combine your interests, in terms of majors and career paths. If you have a vision (or perhaps multiple visions) for what you want to do, the clarity about where to study will come naturally, based on where the most compelling work in your field(s) of interest is being done.
You may find that some of the most interesting programs and research are at land-grant universities with ag schools. Generally these are not the most rejective private universities that top students often feel they must aim for. (Where the two worlds intersect is at Cornell, which has a lot of interesting interdisciplinary stuff going on. Example: Biohybrid robots controlled by electrical impulses — in mushrooms | Cornell Chronicle )
But overall, for both life sciences/botany/mycology/etc. and engineering, the Ivy+ schools do not corner the market on opportunities; there are top-notch publics with ag schools - including VT mentioned above, Purdue, UIUC, UC Davis, Oregon State, Rutgers (Mycological Collection at The Chrysler Herbarium and Mycological Collection of Rutgers SEBS), the Cal Poly schools and more - that could all have amazing opportunities for your interests, so keep an open mind and don’t get entirely stuck on the quest for “trophy” acceptances. And do try to enjoy high school along the way!
Colleges want well rounded and unique students, because that helps make college a fun place for others. So I would keep doing mycology, bass, and baseball. Be yourself.
The most important constraint on most college students’ choice of college is the amount of money available to them. I.e. your college choice depends mostly on your parents’ financial planning, with your achievement mattering only within the constraints created by your parents’ finances.
So do the best you can in school, and hope that your parents do the best they can with their financial planning.
Perhaps study a foreign language spoken in another country rather than or in addition to Latin (a language with Latin roots such as Spanish, Italian, French would likely be easy if you’ve already started Latin).
I also note as a corollary that kids with really good numbers can in fact use those numbers not just to try to get into the most selective that will admit them, but also to get the best financial offer they can.
Sometimes there is some overlap just because some of the colleges with the biggest need aid budgets are among the most popular and therefore among the most selective.
However, there may also be opportunities to “chase merit”, possibly even get auto merit, at somewhat less popular and therefore somewhat less selective colleges.
And when the time comes, if the OP is interested, the people here are collectively great at helping kids and parents identify promising ideas for chasing merit.
Financial aid is a valid reason for focusing on top schools.
Usually I would write to stop thinking about college for now, relax, make friends, work hard and enjoy high school.
However, I want to make an exception and let you know that two things stand out for me for you as a 9th grader. First, your niche interest in mycology is the type of thing colleges love when looking to assemble an interesting class. Remember, it is not so much about a hierarchy of individuals but about getting that interesting mix of interest and talents.
Second, and maybe even more importantly, music achievements can be really helpful with admissions. Regardless of intended major, you can submit a music supplement including recording/video (can usually be short, one piece), music resume (yes keep a list), and 1-2 letters of recommendation related to music (not just about talent, also work ethic, cooperative with others, etc.) Doing music outside of school is especially important: youth orchestra, summer programs, and if possible, conservatory prep are examples.
I know kids who got into Harvard with less than rigorous academics, because of their music activities.
Those school awards are not that impactful. Student of the month in middle school is not relevant at all!
Don’t stress about this. Just be yourself (and explore who that is!). There are many great colleges. You may be in an environment that emphasizes top schools but check these out too ctcl.org just to widen your knowledge of options.
Yeah, when the time comes, different approaches make sense for different people depending on their actual budget, their actual qualifications, their residency, the academic programs they need, and so on–all before getting to things that are more wants than needs.
So discussing details now is not going to be helpful. But I do think as a general proposition, the better your core academic qualifications, the more options you might end up having for an affordable college.
Which is probably obvious, but I do think sometimes you see kids who are pushing in various ways to try to maximize their chances of getting into the most selective colleges, and it ends up undermining their core academic qualifications. Like, they try to advance too far, too fast in some core academic area, and end up getting worse grades. Or they do so many activities that they compromise on sleep, and end up getting worse grades. Or so on.
That probably isn’t helping them with highly selective college admissions either, but it is also potentially cutting back on some of their opportunities for merit, including auto-merit. So, not a great idea.
And not that the OP needs perfect grades either. But they should be trying to do their reasonable best, and that includes being well-prepared, having enough time for all of studying and rest and actual fun, and so on.
In my family core academic requirements were not the key to admission to Ivies (2 kids). Just offering an alternative viewpoint in order to minimize stress. For instance, colleges understand that pursuit of high level music (or perhaps mycology1) might impact course choices. As a general rule, of course take the classes that challenge you, but not at a level that compromises your outside interests like music and fungi. We actually used online classes (accepted by the school) to provide flexibility in scheduling.
Offering this advice not because it will help with hyper-selective colleges (though there’s some evidence that it does) but because it’ll make you a better person overall, but look into getting a part-time job (even if just in the summers) once you’re old enough to work. Possibly in a local garden store, to complement your interest in fungi? Possibly in something completely unrelated, to give you a wider lens? Especially in a family where finances are uncertain, and especially if you’re surrounded by the kinds of students at a selective private school, a job where you can contribute towards your school tuition — or even just cover your personal spending money — can help ground you, and also give you a more meaningful role in contributing to family life.
Other unsolicited advice: there’s a certain brainrot that can set in when exposed to places like Reddit’s college-related subreddits, and I’d strongly encourage you to avoid those (or similar) as much as possible. Like wherever “T8” came from … I’d recommend giving that a wide berth. Factoring in your academic lineage, there’s going to already be some internal pressure to strive for those top schools, and the more you can do to see the rich opportunities that will be available to you at a number of different institutions, the better.
You seem like an absolutely fascinating person, and I’m excited for your journey in life. You remind me of my favorite kids from my kids’ high school. Keep having passions and exploring them and sharing them because of your intrinsic interest in them, not because of extrinsic awards or prizes that might come your way, and you’ll have an amazing life.