Nervous Freshman in High School

MWolf
Sat, 13 Jun 2020 06:23:26 +0000

You just finished you freshman year. It is FAR too early to even think of to which colleges you should apply.

To begin with, your freshman GPA really doesn’t tell us what your GPA will be by the end of your Junior year. Your classes will get more challenging, and you really have no idea whether you will keep up, do better, or do worse. However, “mostly Bs, with a few As” will not make you competitive for any of the colleges on your list. Also, “working hard over the summer” is not the right attitude. You should be looking to do well in high school, and that means working hard all year.

On the other hand, it is only your freshman year. If your yearly GPAs over the next 2.5 years are 4.0 or close, you will have a competitive GPA for even the most selective colleges.

Your ECs are what you have after a single year. You do not know what your participation will look like at the end of Junior year. You could be excelling and receiving awards, or you could be chugging along, doing the minimum. There is no way that anybody could have predicted what my daughter’s ECs would look like after her junior year, based on what they looked like after her freshman year

The maximum PSAT/NMSQT score is 1520. There is no way that you can know what your score will be either on your PSAT or your SAT, since you as of yet lack the knowledge needed to get the scores that you predict. There is no possible way that you can predict that you will get 1500-1600 of your SAT at this point.

You should not be spending your time and energy looking at your GOA and ECs and trying to figure out which college you can attend. You should be looking at your GPA and ECs, and be thinking how you can do your best on both.

High school is not a race, in which the “winner” gets to go to a “prestigious” college, and the “losers” go to “lesser” colleges. It is a period in which you obtain knowledge and critical thinking skills, explore your interests, passions, strengths, and weaknesses. Based on these, you can select the colleges which will A, help you achieve your post-college goals, and B, will be a good fit for you, socially, academically, and personality-wise. After freshman year in highschool, it is too early to make those decisions.

Do not waste your high school years obsessing over which colleges you will attend. These are four years you will not get back - enjoy them and take advantage of them!

Take care, and enjoy your summer!