Things To Do while in High School
Maintain good grades. Your grade point average (gpa) does come into consideration when applying to colleges. The higher the gpa, the better. You want to show colleges that you are consistently earning good grades in your courses. You do not want to have good grades one year and bad the next; fluctuation is not good. Showing improvements is also good.
Get Involved. Getting good grades alone will not get you into the college of your dreams. Therefore you want to get involved and be well rounded. You should get involved as early as possible, starting your freshman year of high school. Participate in sports or clubs or both. Make sure that you are involved in things that interest you. The quality of involvement is much better than the quantity of involvement. College admissions like to see that you have been involved in a sport or club for four years, held a title rather than be in 20 clubs in which you aren’t truly involved in.
Get to know your teachers. While applying to colleges, you will need recommendations from your teachers. That’s why you want to get to know your teachers and maintain a good relationship with them. You’ll be surprised by how well of a recommendation they will write for you. You also want to make sure that you did perform well in their class as well. Colleges will require recommendations. Depending on your major, recommendations from certain academic subjects will be required as well. I.e. a science major will most likely need a recommendation from a science teacher.
Stay busy during the summer. I understand that during the summer, all students are just happy school is over and they can relax. Staying busy can include getting a job, volunteering, playing summer sports, internships, etc.
Challenge yourself. Colleges will look at the type of courses you take. Therefore it is important for you to challenge yourself rather than take easy courses and cruise through them.
Take either the SAT or ACT. These are standardized tests for college admissions to look at while reviewing your application. Ideally you want to be in the range or higher that the school looks at. The ACT is more widely used in the Midwest and Southern states while SAT is more used in the East and West Coasts. The ACT has 4 sections which consist of English, Mathematics, Reading, and Science. No penalty for incorrect answers on multiple-choice. The SAT is approximately three hours and forty five minutes long. SAT has 3 sections which are consist of Critical Reading, Mathematics, and Writing. The best score you can get in each section is 800. Therefore a perfect score on the SAT would be a 2400. Different colleges have different SAT ranges that they look at. Register for the SAT at www.CollegeBoard.com at your high school or a high school near you.
You may also want to consider taking SAT subject tests. Most colleges at the higher education level will require you to take at least two or three SAT subject tests. Depending on your major, you may also be required to take these. You may take up to three SAT subject tests in one day. Each subject test is approximately one hour long. Each subject test is also scored on a scale of 200 to 800.
Write a great remembering college essay. College admissions do read your college essay. If you can write a great remembering college easy, this can help your chances of getting in. I know of students that applied to Ivy League Universities and the college admissions personally wrote how much they liked their college essay in their acceptance letter.
