<p>I’m a freshman in HS, and have focussed aspirations to go into medicine. Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, and Northwestern are my dream schools. Grades have never been a problem, and I take all advanced classes. I play soccer for my school and a top soccer club. I plan on joining science club, and whatever med programs there are at my school. I am in the Houston Writers Guild, a program committed to developing higher literary skills ( short stories, novels, and such 
When I’m old enough, I plan on volunteering at a hospital for aprox 300 hours total in 4 years. I am planning a sailing voyage to Costa Rica with my father next year, which I hope will set me apart from the rest of the applicants when the time comes. I plan on attending NYLF for medicine next summer as well. I also do archery and backpacking. I put so much effort into making myself the best person I can be, mostly to fulfill my dream of becoming a surgeon. What specific things do I need to do to improve my chances of getting into, say, Yale? Please help to ease my worrying mind :(</p>
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To get into medschool u don’t “need” an undergraduate dream school; u just need GPA & MCAT scores. If u can easily afford the cost of undergraduate dream school, then enjoy. But don’t go deeply into debt for it. You’ll need the money to pay for med school.</p>
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Sounds like u can afford dream school. And when the adcomns see this, they will think so, too.</p>
<p>To answer your question, my answer would be that a lot changes between 14 and 17. In other words, 14 year-olds plan, God laughs. Just be prepared to alter plans as bumps arise.</p>
<p>It’s not like I’m rich, my father is a sailor by trade. I know that the financial aid at the top schools is great, though. Would you say my extra curriculars are worthy of the adcomns’ legit attention?</p>
<p>EC: getting published is great. Many people write, very few are Writers. Just remember: “plot” is a verb.</p>
<p>2300+ SAT scores, above 700 on SAT IIs. </p>
<p>GPA 3.7 or above.</p>
<p>The sailing trip will NOT set you apart, unless there is some kind of twist to it. Even if your father is a sailor, you’ll have to play that up in terms of “I was able to go on a voyage with him” and how you worked to be able to help out on the boat as opposed to “our family planned a voyage”.</p>
<p>If you are 14, you should be able to work or volunteer, maybe not in a hospital but in another health-care related field.</p>
<p>As to what I would say to myself - I’m old 
so it really doesn’t matter. Back when (the 1980s), most kids had no idea about college unless their parents went to an Ivy or something like that. I didn’t think about college until junior year.</p>
<p>But nowadays - the best advice is to get help if you have any trouble in classes. With your targetted schools, if you start to slip from an A, you need to get tutoring or extra help from the teacher. You also need to line up teachers who can do a college recommendation for you. If you plan to play soccer in college, it’s not to early to attend recruitment camps at any of those schools mentioned (Northwestern has several large camps around the country).</p>
<p>If you want to be a surgeon, I suggest looking into medical school exploration programs for HS students, and also shadowing programs. If you know anyone who is a surgeon, you can talk to them about it. Remember that “surgeon” is a REALLY general term, so spend some time figuring out specialties of interest. General surgeons either do ER work or fix ingrown toenails and hemorrhoids. </p>
<p>PS - don’t burn yourself out. Too much might not be enough for any of those schools, but too much can affect your grades and ECs.</p>
<p>NYLF is one program run by this for profit company. </p>
<p><a href=“Envision EMI - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Envision_EMI</a></p>
<p>Lots of marketing hype to nervous teens. Benefit? To the company for sure. For college admissions? Doubtful – they spam HS kids with a 3.5 GPA and parents with more money than brains. *What an exclusive club!</p>
<p>We got spam from a few of those pricey pre-pre-med programs after my daughter noted biology as a possible interest. Honestly I would suggest you save your money and do something authentic. I doubt spending a fortune on a “future doctors leadership conference” is going to impress anyone. If you’re not old enough to volunteer in a medical setting, how about a retirement home? I bet you’d learn plenty about medical problems there.</p>
<p>I would tell myself to lay off the USWNR college rankings and self impose the burden of having an elite dream school that I will most likely not get into.</p>
<p>(By the time you apply for college, these schools are probably going to have much lower acceptance rates)</p>
<p>Also, sailing to Costa Rica will likely set you apart in a bad way if you put it on your application. The last thing you want to do is come off as entitled or privileged.</p>
<p>^ I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. We’re a lower income family, Dad is a marine tradesman, and we were able to do a sailing voyage when our daughter was young, NOT because of money or privilege, but because we worked really hard for it.</p>
<p>We don’t know the details of his planned sailing trip. If he’s in some way accompanying Dad on something work-related, and/or the family is not a high-income family to begin with, I think it would actually be an interesting, good thing to set him apart.</p>
<p>It is great to be ambitious but I would tell my 14 year old self to not get too far ahead of myself. Enjoy HS and try to not worry about college for a couple of years. And remember that there are a ton of wonderful universities out there so don’t get too focused on a few very selective dream schools. And don’t worry about getting into med school for a couple of years after you are in college. The best thing to do is to continue on a strong path, take good classes. work hard, and do things you enjoy (and don’t worry if they necessarily set you apart for college admissions). </p>
<p>Mostly I would get off this site and not ‘worry’ about college–especially ‘getting in’ any particular one-- until Jr year. Live your life for you, not for your college application.</p>
<p>I’d tell myself to learn how to study before getting to college. But 14 year olds don’t listen anyway.</p>
<p>i’d tell myself to have slept more(even though i get like 7 hrs per day during the school year lol)</p>
<p>@staceyneil The facts of something and how something actually appears are two different things. Admissions officers won’t know that your parents had to work hard for that. It appears to be an expensive hobby, and people who engage in expensive hobbies make a lot of money. In my mind, I can imagine sailing looking much different than those millionaire celebrities partying on a yatch in Ibiza.</p>
<p>Ask yourself if you really think wasting away your high school years is worth getting into one of these schools, especially as a pre-med since UG prestige doesn’t carry much weight. Forget your parents etc, ask yourself if yju wouldn’t mind giving a lot of your free time and possibly sleep at one point to achieve this.
If you still want to do this, then work really hard (great grades are the most important factor, get a 4.0 at all costs ) keep an eye on standardized testing (take practice tests every few months then see if you need to start prepping earlier or harder), take the least rigorous courses needed for your counselor to tick off most rigorous on your form, be extremely polite to everyone, and do all EC’s at first and focus on the ones which you will excel in and gain leadership positions. </p>
<p>I’d tell myself a few things:
- You will mess up. At least once. Probably way more than that. You will bomb a test or forget a homework assignment or maybe get a grade in a class that is disappointing to you. Do not think that means that you should give up.
- You will change your mind. If you asked me where I wanted to go to college three months ago, at the end of my junior year, I would’ve given you a completely different answer than I would now. That’s even more true for three years ago when I was a freshman. I have a friend who was obsessed with UNC-Chapel Hill freshman year, WashU sophomore year, Yale junior year, and is now applying ED to WashU and not applying to the other two at all. It happens all the time. Don’t think you’ll be the exception. No matter how prepared you think you are, freshman year is too early to really know what you’re looking for in a college. Be comfortable with letting go of the “idea” of a school when you visit it/research it and realize it isn’t as great as you thought (and be warned- this happens a lot with Ivy Leagues, as they’re built up to be some sort of utopia, but upon visiting, you realize that the only thing you like about the school is the name.)
- Stop. Don’t start seriously looking at colleges until junior year, maybe the second semester of sophomore year. Anytime before then, you’re just working yourself into a frenzy prematurely.
- Sometimes, you have to ignore other people and go with your gut. But other times, you really need to listen to the advice of others. Learn to distinguish between the two. This may mean making a bad decision or two, but you have to live and learn.</p>
<p>I would tell myself to enjoy life more and not worry about the future so much.</p>
<p>I would tell myself that having a great GPA and studying for the SAT/ACT will make things smoother later on</p>