How 9th-11th graders can spend their winter break in the best way
What does a non-senior high school student need to do over this winter break to help prepare for college? In most senses, nothing. This is a break, after all. And, unlike 12th graders, you’re not finishing up applications for an early January deadline.
But in another sense, this is a great time to work on college applications, in the most broad way. The best way to approach college admission is as the beginning of a relationship. You’re trying to find the best match for you as a whole person. It’s not about proving that you’re worthy, or trying to rack up a lot of “impressive” things for your resume. You are, however, trying to be the best whole person that you can, and a break from school is a good time to plan and practice.
First, look over what I wrote for seniors. On top of finishing up college applications, I suggest that they should rest, read, re-asses, and spend quality time with people. Those are all true for you as well. Below is a list, which I first put together for my own 16 year-old, of things to try over the break that are neither difficult work nor passive consuming. I hope you’ll try some.
Go for a walk long walk, at least 30 minutes. Don’t play music or have any distractions. If you’re already a walker, take a different route than you’re used to. Pay attention to all your senses as you walk.
Clean and organize your room, bit by bit. Choose a small, discrete section--like a single shelf on a bookcase or one part of your desk--and clean it thoroughly. Then, when you’re ready, move on to the next. If you have the time, energy, and ambition, do a full “Konmari” of your room.
Read a novel. A good one. Preferably by an author you’ve never heard of. Read with your full attention.
Begin a meditation practice if you haven’t already got one. I like Andrew Weiss’s Beginning Mindfulness.
Improve your organization. I like Dan Charnas’s Everything in its Place: The Power of Mis-en-place to Organize Your Life, Work, and Mind.
Listen to some music. Preferably something you’ve never listened to before. Listen with your full attention.
Choose a work of art and learn as much about it as you can. Find information about it from as many good sources as possible. If it’s a work you can see in person over the break, even better.
Do a creative writing exercise.
Read a college profile. Or more than one.
Watch some School of Life videos.
Choose a place you’ve never been and plan an imaginary vacation there. Research online. Be as detailed as possible in your itinerary, learning as much as you can about the place.
What should you be doing this fall?
Whether you’re in the 9th grade or 12th, at a large high school or home schooled, taking advanced classes or remedial ones, my advice for high school students thinking about college is the same:
* The best way to prepare for college is to be a good high school student
* Anything you do just because “it looks good to colleges” is a waste of time
* You need a time management system and a meditation routine
If you’d like more detailed, grade-specific advice, here are this year’s updates to “What Should I Be Doing Now?” for fall.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are two easy things you can do:
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Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.
Photo by Zoe Herring
Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.
Rising sophomores and juniors: here's what to do this summer
You should not do anything that is boring or onerous just because you think it might “look good to colleges.” Colleges prefer that you are in interesting person, and there’s nothing interesting about wasting your time and energy just because you’re insecure about someone else’s approval. Don’t jump through any metaphorical hoops (or literal ones, either, I guess) based on vague ideas of what colleges want.
What should sophomores do this summer to be better prepared for college?
Train. You're like a professional athlete during the off-season. You get a lot more flexibility with your schedule and a lot fewer people watching you as you work, but you've got to spend this time productively. Does this mean to fill up your day with summer school classes and be a constant student? No. Like pro athletes, find another way to enhance the skills you have.
Think about your notable skills and talents, the things that you may want to emphasize on college applications. Now find interesting ways to hone those skills and talents. How can you best prove and improve your resilience, passion, intellectual curiosity, initiative, talent, creativity, empathy, or leadership? The more unlike another high school class or program the activity is, the better.
So, for example, going to a weeklong camp for debaters is good, but volunteering to do door-to-door canvasing for a local political campaign is better. Reading books ahead of time for your 11th grade English class is good, but starting a book club that focuses on foreign or lesser-known books is better. Taking a class for adults at the local community college is good, but teaching younger kids in a summer program is better. The most important thing is that you focus on yourself and the qualities you want to improve, not focus on a vague sense of "looks good to colleges." In any setting—be it a summer job, summer camp, traveling, or staying close to home—do everything you can with your summer time to be a better person, not have a better résumé.
Push yourself. If you need to work or want a job, that's great. As far as college is concerned, it really doesn't matter what that job is so long as you work hard at it and are reflective about what you learn from the job. As you go to work, remind yourself to work as hard as you can. And when you're done, ask yourself what you learned from that day's work. Those two things matter so much more to everyone than the job title or name of the company.
If you don't need to work and don’t want to work, then make other plans. And here's the trick: treat it like a job, in the sense that you decide to do your best and be reflective. Even if you have the cushiest summer imaginable--maybe you're going to spend two months as a VIP on a cruise ship sailing around the Caribbean--you can still get a lot out of this. Just begin each day reminding yourself to make the most of the day, and end each day reflecting about what you learned. Whatever is you do, it can be useful for your college applications and useful for your productive and interesting life.
Go someplace new. Choose someplace you've never been that you can visit this summer. Geographically, it doesn't matter how close or far the place is, so long as it's new to you. It can be another country, another state, or another neighborhood. Try to get a sense of how people unlike yourself spend their days, and do it with an open and empathetic mind.
Goal of 20. Another way you can make the most of your summer is to give yourself a goal of 20. Make 20 visits to local museums or parks. Have 20 intentional interactions with older members of your family asking them about their experiences. Read 20 books. Watch 20 of the best movies of all time. Find 20 items to donate to charity. Run 20 miles, spread out over as many days as you need. The number 20 is arbitrary, but an arbitrary number helps make a vague idea an achievable goal. Every time you knock out one of your 20, remind yourself to be deliberate and reflective.
What should 9th graders do this summer to be better prepared for college?
Anything! You can do just about anything, I mean it. In terms of preparing for the next three years of high school, preparing for college, and preparing for productive adulthood, there's no magical activity that you really must do to get ready. Do your thing, no matter what it is (within reason--if your current thing is chaotic or self-destructive then take care of that first).
At this point, what you do isn't nearly as important as how you do it. Whether you're doing amazing, once-in-a-lifetime things like volunteering with veterinarians at a wildlife refuge in Botswana or mundane things like babysitting your little brother, you can make the most of it. Be reflective. Ask yourself "how did today go, and what can I do tomorrow that will be interesting?" Every day. Read something that relates to what you're doing. Even if all you're doing is walking aimlessly around the neighborhood trying to find someone to hang out with, stop at the local library and learn about the history of your neighborhood and go inside shops you've never been in before. Take photos of weird things you notice around the neighborhood. Be engaged with your world and your mind, whatever you're doing in the world.
Write about your experiences. Writing about what you do on a regular basis serves several goals. For one, any college-bound person has got to be very comfortable with a lot of writing, so practicing on your own with your own assignments helps build up your discipline in a way that's more palatable to you. It will also help you maintain and deepen your self-reflection that's so vital for your off-time. You’re not trying to draft college application essays or make it into a novel. You’re just practicing writing in your own voice about what’s interesting to you.
Make a product. Toward the end of the summer, make some sort of product. Select some journal entries to make into full-on essays. Select and edit some photos to make a narrative photo essay. Make an interactive map of the places you visited. Make a book of advice for someone starting the job that you worked. Again, you can do almost anything. The idea is to curate and edit your experience into something that you can share. That's kind of a definition of education, isn't it?
Meet someone new. Right, of course you're going to meet new people over the summer. But what I'm talking about is to proactively and intentionally introduce yourself to new people that you've chosen to meet. Circumstance, coincidence, serendipity, and providence bring all sorts of people into our lives. That doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't work to bring others into our lives through our own intentions and effort.
Practice some form of meditation and contemplation. There's probably no better gift you can give yourself than to start the habit of meditation and contemplation. There are dozens of different traditions and techniques to fit any religious, cultural, and personal background. Here is a pretty solid introduction to 23 of them. Choose one and try it. It doesn't have to be a religious or spiritual exercise. It can just be good relaxation.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:
Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.
Read these related posts:
Ask a question in the comments section.
Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.
Photo by Angela Elisabeth
Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.
How students can handle their Winter Break
What does a non-senior high school student need to do over this winter break to help prepare for college? In most senses, nothing. This is a break, after all. And, unlike 12th graders, you’re not finishing up applications for an early January deadline.
But in another sense, this is a great time to work on college applications, in the most broad way. The best way to approach college admission is as the beginning of a relationship. You’re trying to find the best match for you as a whole person. It’s not about proving that you’re worthy, or trying to rack up a lot of “impressive” things for your resume. You are, however, trying to be the best whole person that you can, and a break from school is a good time to plan and practice.
First, look over what I wrote for seniors. On top of finishing up college applications, I suggest that they should rest, read, re-asses, and spend quality time with people. Those are all true for you as well. Below is a list, which I first put together for my own 16 year-old, of things to try over the break that are neither difficult work nor passive consuming. I hope you’ll try some.
Go for a walk long walk, at least 30 minutes. Don’t play music or have any distractions. If you’re already a walker, take a different route than you’re used to. Pay attention to all your senses as you walk.
Clean and organize your room, bit by bit. Choose a small, discrete section--like a single shelf on a bookcase or one part of your desk--and clean it thoroughly. Then, when you’re ready, move on to the next. If you have the time, energy, and ambition, do a full “Konmari” of your room.
Read a novel. A good one. Preferably by an author you’ve never heard of. Read with your full attention.
Begin a meditation practice if you haven’t already got one. I like Andrew Weiss’s Beginning Mindfulness.
Improve your organization. I like Dan Charnas’s Everything in its Place: The Power of Mis-en-place to Organize Your Life, Work, and Mind.
Listen to some music. Preferably something you’ve never listened to before. Not just as background while you do other things—listen with your full attention.
Choose a work of art and learn as much about it as you can. Find information about it from as many good sources as possible. If it’s a work you can see in person over the break, even better.
Do a creative writing exercise.
Read a college profile. Or more than one.
Watch some School of Life videos.
Choose a place you’ve never been and plan an imaginary vacation there. Research online. Be as detailed as possible in your itinerary, learning as much as you can about the place.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are two easy things you can do:
Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.
Ask a question in the comments section.
Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.
Photo by Angela Elisabeth
Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.
9th graders, what should you be doing this fall?
If you’ve just started high school or are just about to start, congratulations! I don’t get into generalizations about these being the best, hardest, easiest, most important, or more wasted years of your life. I just know that a lot of intellectual, social, and emotional learning takes place in high school. You are ready, wether you feel ready or not.
There’s not a lot to say about preparing for college while you’re in 9th grade. That’s still a long way off, and you’ve got a lot to do before you get to that. But if you already know that you’re planning on college or think you might be going to college, here are some things to do these first few months to start you down the path.
Work at being good at high school. This has an academic side—take the most rigorous classes you can, get the best grades you can, be involved in your education. But just as important at this point are the social and emotional sides. You’re easing your way into a new and exciting (and challenging) place. You’re going to have missteps, and you’re going to change your mind about things. That’s normal, and that’s fine. If you’re feeling pressure to make yourself into a perfect resume—from your family, your school, your friends, or yourself—just repeat this mantra to yourself and anyone else: the best way to prepare for college is to be a good high school student. If you find yourself feeling disconnected from high school because you’re already too immersed in test prep or overexerting yourself in too many activities to boost your college prospects, then it’s time to back off and reevaluate. Also remember this important rule: if the only reason you’re doing something is because you think it will look good to colleges, don’t do it. That’s not a good reason to do anything.
If by Halloween there’s a class that still isn’t working out—because it’s too easy, or too challenging, or not the right fit—bring this up now and see if there are schedule changes that can be made for the spring semester. Keep doing your best in the class, but understand that adjusting plans is something that all successful people do.
Explore your interests. Remember that the whole point of education is to help you be a productive, happy, and interesting person. You can’t and shouldn’t wait until some future date to start working on those things. Explore activities and interests that you haven’t before. Try out a new club, sit somewhere different for lunch, find an interesting question to ask a teacher you haven’t connected with yet. The great thing about high school is that you get to do a lot of growing and changing and developing—you’re not stuck being the same person you were at the end of last year or the beginning of this year. But the hard part is that you are in charge of that growth and development; it can’t happen passively. So try new things, read new things, listen to new things, talk about new things, think new things.
Begin good habits. There are two things you need for success in college and beyond: a meditation routine and a time management system. Now is the time to begin. The sooner and better you do these two things, the easier everything else will be.
Start talking to your family about paying for college. Ask them what the plan is, what your priorities should be, and how you can contribute. If they give you any of the three most popular answers (“don’t worry about,” “we can’t afford anything,” or “we don’t have enough to afford it but make too much for financial aid,” then please ask them to reconsider. You need something more specific. You’ve got time to have these conversations, but now is the best time to begin them.
I wish you the best in this exciting and difficult time!
What should current 9th and 10th graders do this summer?
You should not do anything that is boring or onerous just because you think it might “look good to colleges.” Colleges prefer that you are in interesting person, and there’s nothing interesting about wasting your time and energy just because you’re insecure about someone else’s approval. Don’t jump through any metaphorical hoops (or literal ones, either, I guess) based on vague ideas of what colleges want.
What should sophomores do this summer to be better prepared for college?
Train. You're like a professional athlete during the off-season. You get a lot more flexibility with your schedule and a lot fewer people watching you as you work, but you've got to spend this time productively. Does this mean to fill up your day with summer school classes and be a constant student? No. Like pro athletes, find another way to enhance the skills you have.
Think about your notable skills and talents, the things that you may want to emphasize on college applications. Now find interesting ways to hone those skills and talents. How can you best prove and improve your resilience, passion, intellectual curiosity, initiative, talent, creativity, empathy, or leadership? The more unlike another high school class or program the activity is, the better.
So, for example, going to a weeklong camp for debaters is good, but volunteering to do door-to-door canvasing for a local political campaign is better. Reading books ahead of time for your 11th grade English class is good, but starting a book club that focuses on foreign or lesser-known books is better. Taking a class for adults at the local community college is good, but teaching younger kids in a summer program is better. The most important thing is that you focus on yourself and the qualities you want to improve, not focus on a vague sense of "looks good to colleges." Do everything you can with your summer time--in any setting, be it a summer job, summer camp, traveling, or staying close to home--to be a better person, not have a better résumé.
Push yourself. If you need to work or want a job, that's great. As far as college is concerned it really doesn't matter what that job is so long as you work hard at it and are reflective about what you learn from the job. As you go to work, remind yourself to work as hard as you can. And when you're done, ask yourself what you learned from that day's work. Those two things matter so much more to everyone than the job title or name of the company.
If you don't need to work and don’t want to work, then make other plans. And here's the trick: treat it like a job, in the sense that you decide to do your best and be reflective. Even if you have the cushiest summer imaginable--maybe you're going to spend two months as a VIP on a cruise ship sailing around the Caribbean--you can still get a lot out of this. Just begin each day reminding yourself to make the most of the day, and end each day reflecting about what you learned. Whatever is you do, it can be useful for your college applications and useful for your productive and interesting life.
Go someplace new. Choose someplace you've never been that you can visit this summer. Geographically, it doesn't matter how close or far the place is, so long as it's new to you. It can be another country, another state, or another neighborhood. Try to get a sense of how people unlike yourself spend their days, and do it with an open and empathetic mind.
Goal of 20. Another way you can make the most of your summer is to give yourself a goal of 20. Make 20 visits to local museums or parks. Have 20 intentional interactions with older members of your family asking them about their experiences. Read 20 books. Watch 20 of the best movies of all time. Find 20 items to donate to charity. Run 20 miles, spread out over as many days as you need. The number 20 is arbitrary, but an arbitrary number helps make a vague idea an achievable goal. Every time you knock out one of your 20, remind yourself to be deliberate and reflective.
What should 9th graders do this summer to be better prepared for college?
Anything! You can do just about anything, I mean it. In terms of preparing for the next three years of high school, preparing for college, and preparing for productive adulthood, there's no magical activity that you really must do to get ready. Do your thing, no matter what it is (within reason--if your current thing is chaotic or self-destructive then take care of that first).
At this point, what you do isn't nearly as important as how you do it. Whether you're doing amazing, once-in-a-lifetime things like volunteering with veterinarians at a wildlife refuge in Botswana or mundane things like babysitting your little brother, you can make the most of it. Be reflective. Ask yourself "how did today go, and what can I do tomorrow that will be interesting?" Every day. Read something that relates to what you're doing. Even if all you're doing is walking aimlessly around the neighborhood trying to find someone to hang out with, stop at the local library and learn about the history of your neighborhood and go inside shops you've never been in before. Take photos of weird things you notice around the neighborhood. Be engaged with your world and your mind, whatever you're doing in the world.
Write about your experiences. Writing about what you do on a regular basis serves several goals. For one, any college-bound person has got to be very comfortable with a lot of writing, so practicing on your own with your own assignments helps build up your discipline in a way that's more palatable to you. It will also help you maintain and deepen your self-reflection that's so vital for your off-time. You’re not trying to draft college application essays or make it into a novel. You’re just practicing writing in your own voice about what’s interesting to you.
Make a product. Toward the end of the summer, make some sort of product. Select some journal entries to make into full-on essays. Select and edit some photos to make a narrative photo essay. Make an interactive map of the places you visited. Make a book of advice for someone starting the job that you worked. Again, you can do almost anything. The idea is to curate and edit your experience into something that you can share. That's kind of a definition of education, isn't it?
Meet someone new. Right, of course you're going to meet new people over the summer. But what I'm talking about is to proactively and intentionally introduce yourself to new people that you've chosen to meet. Circumstance, coincidence, serendipity, and providence bring all sorts of people into our lives. That doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't work to bring others into our lives through our own intentions and effort.
Practice some form of meditation and contemplation. There's probably no better gift you can give yourself than to start the habit of meditation and contemplation. There are dozens of different traditions and techniques to fit any religious, cultural, and personal background. Here is a pretty solid introduction to 23 of them. Choose one and try it. It doesn't have to be a religious or spiritual exercise. It can just be good relaxation.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:
Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.
Read these other posts:
What should current juniors do this summer?
Ask a question in the comments section.
Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.
Photo by Angela Elisabeth.
Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.
Finding the right college can be like finding the right bottle of wine
Last night I was supposed to give this talk to a local PTO, but instead I got Covid and am in isolation. I’m publishing it here for them and any other parent. And since the wine here is only metaphorical wine, anyone is welcome to enjoy.
For at least the next few minutes, go back to the beginning. Pretend you know nothing about colleges or the college admission search. For just a few minutes, feel that overwhelming feeling of knowing nothing. You probably know more than nothing; you may already know a lot. But I’ve found that even ambitious, well-informed high school students are often overwhelmed with the search, and somethimes it just helps to go back to the beginning and make sure you’re thinking it all through.
Depending on how you count, there are four to six thousand colleges and universities in the US. Even if you want to narrow it down to “the best” schools, the US News rankings (which aren’t actually an objective measurement of the best) include over 1,400 schools. There are just a lot of choices, and if you don’t know what you’re really looking for, it’s overwhelming. So as a way to think about that overwhelming range of choices, I’d like you to think about another one, something completely different.
Imagine you’re going to buy some wine at a wine shop. So there you are looking for wine, and you know little about wine. Maybe you know nothing about wine. You certainly don’t know what you like. You know some of those bottles are better suited to your taste than others, but you don’t know which ones.
Say you’re in a hurry. You need to pick up one or two bottles of wine for tonight. You’ve been invited to a dinner party and asked to bring wine. But you don’t know anything about wine. A good wine shop will have hundreds of different wines to choose from. How do you choose?
Expert advice. You can ask for advice from a store employee and hope it’s good advice. But it’s difficult for them to give you good advice if you can’t tell them anything about what you like. The most you can hope for is that they’ll tell you what some of their more popular wines are, or maybe some wines that are good places for beginners. But they have no real way of helping you find something you’ll like in a hurry.
Ratings and rankings. There are magazines and websites devoted to giving scores and ratings for wine. Many wine shops will highlight the highly rated wines in their store. If you go with something that was rated highly by the Wine Advocate, then you know you’re getting a wine that somebody likes, though you may end up not liking it. You may have completely different taste than the reviewers.
Pictures. Like a lot of people, you can choose a bottle based on how much you like the label. Wine producers pay a lot of attention to their labels and make them as appealing as possible. You can’t judge a wine by its label any more than you can judge a book by its cover, but both will tell you a little it about what’s inside. But not much. To choose based on the label is essentially to rely on advertising and design, not the wine itself.
Experience. You can go with what you know, however limited that is, by grabbing a bottle that looks familiar. Maybe you see a bottle that you recognize from a restaurant wine list or a friend’s house, and you go with that. Maybe you had a glass of it once and thought it was ok, so you go with that.
Proximity. Why go looking through all the bins if you don’t know anything about them? Instead, just pick one that’s featured up front and get out of there.
Any of these methods for choosing a wine may work out. Most people in this situation will use a combination of several. But even choosing a wine with a good score…that the store employee recommends…with a great label…can still end up being something you hate. You’re kind of relying on luck that the bottle you pick, however you pick it, will be one that you enjoy. You haven’t got time to figure it out.
A lot of high school seniors pick a college the same way. For a variety of reasons, they haven’t given college a lot of thought or attention before 12th grade. They haven’t thought about what they want or need, just what’s “good.” And then they only have a few months to go through the application process. Seniors who want to pick colleges to apply to when they haven’t done a lot of research use the same methods as someone buying wine in a hurry without much research.
Advice. There are plenty of people out there willing to give college advice (including me). But the less they know about you, what you want, and what you need, the less useful that advice can be.
Ratings and rankings. There’s US News and World Report. And Niche. And Forbes. Or you can Google “Best college for ____” and see what you get. I’m not as anti-ranking as many other college admission advisors, but I know that their use is pretty limited. The ranking site’s criteria are not your criteria.
Pictures. Colleges will send you so many pictures: smiling students wearing backpacks walking across campus; crowds at sporting events; extremely small classes held outside. The schools send these pictures because they know they work—many students make very large, expensive, emotional decisions based in some part on the images that marketers send out.
What they’ve heard of. The reason I hear the most often for a student being interested in a particular college is because “I heard it’s a good school.” They can rarely tell me where they heard it.
Proximity. You can narrow down your choices to ones that are nearby. There’s nothing wrong with that, and there are a number of great universities here in town. But it’s a limitation you would only want to impose for reasons beyond limiting the number of colleges you have to think about.
Like with wine, these methods may work. Or they may not. It takes some luck. But there’s another way.
If you’re not necessarily in a hurry to get wine for immediate use, you have time to learn what you like and what works for you. You’ve got time to find the wines that are good for you, not good for the store employee, the wine magazines, or the label designers. To do this takes time and experimentation. If you’re just beginning, try the mixed case method recommended by wine critic Eric Asimov.
“The best way to start out, once you identify a good shop, is to ask for a mixed case of wine. Tell the merchant your budget and parameters, say, half white, half red, with two sparkling wines, or a few rosés. Or, if a case is too much of an investment, just get a bottle or two at a time. As you drink the wines, note which ones you like and which ones you do not. Keep in mind that you can learn something from every bottle as you begin to identify your personal taste.
When you finish, go back to the merchant with your notes, and ask for another mixed case with selections based on your reactions to the first set. Your learning journey has begun.”
With time, you can use this method to experiment and refine. You can figure out what works for you, which may not be what you would have predicted before you began paying attention. You can get advice, but the advice based on your preferences and, more important, your actual experience. The mixed-case approach takes time and upfront investment, but it’s going to get you to a point where you know what you want and where to find it. It’s going to get you to a point where when you walk into a wine store you know what to do and how to get good results.
If you’re a high school student now, in the 9th-11th grade, you have time for a similar approach to college. Begin with a (metaphorical) mixed case. Look at some large public universities, some mid-sized research schools, some smaller liberal arts college. Check out some of the more unique and “quirky” colleges that are out there. Pay attention and take notes as you learn about schools that you may not have heard of. Then use that information to find more of what you’re looking for.
This is essentially what I do with the students I work with. After a few casual meetings getting to know them, I recommend a bunch of colleges to check out. It’s a mixed case, but larger—usually 30-50 colleges to begin with. I ask them to take some time—from several weeks to several months to almost a year, depending on their grade—to get to know those schools and to take notes on what they find appealing about them. Then from there we add and subtract more schools based on their research until we get it down to around 12 schools for applications in the fall of their senior year. The list we make is balanced, and it’s tailored to them.
Even before we get to that point, though, we’ll do a “blind tasting.” I will give them a chart with descriptions and lots of stats for four to six colleges, but I don’t tell them the names of the colleges. That way the students can’t be swayed by the reputations of the colleges and need to look at them more objectively. We walk through the charts for each school, and I pay close attention to what kinds of things really stand out to them. Some really pay attention to student-faculty ratio, and others don’t care about that. Some are more interested in student diversity than others. Some want to know that their chosen major is a popular one, and some look for schools with a wide mix of popular majors. This exercise helps me get a sense of what they like and what’s important to them before I begin recommending anything.
Here’s a generic mixed case to begin with. 12 schools total: three big public universities, three private research schools, three small liberal arts colleges, and three quirky schools. For any of these categories, I could easily choose 30 more. But these will work. Spend some time figuring out which ones you like, and why. It’s not important right now if you think you might apply to any of them. The point is to get a sense of what you’re looking for, and why. Use Niche, Big Future, Fiske, and the college websites. Then, start searching for colleges with similar traits that you’re looking for. Also, your research can help you find similar colleges. The Fiske guide lists overlapping schools for any in the guide, and Niche also lists similar colleges.
Colorado State University. Fort Collins, CO
University of Alabama. Tuscaloosa, AL
University of Wisconsin-Madison. Madison, WI
Case Western Reserve University. Cleveland, OH
Duke University. Durham, NC
Rice University. Houston, TX
Occidental College. Los Angeles, CA
Champlain College. Burlington, VT
Knox College. Galesburg, IL
Cooper Union. New York, NY
Colorado College. Colorado Springs, CO
Warren Wilson College. Asheville, NC
Let me give a warning about choosing a college based on your intended major. If you don’t know, don’t make it up. Around a third of college students change their major at least once, so don’t feel too sure of your major unless you’re really, strongly sure. If you’ve got no idea what you might major in, there are schools that are really good for that.
This is just a metaphor, and there are limits to how closely finding the wine you like is similar to finding a good-fit college. You’re not choosing one wine to be THE ONE. You can spend months and years trying many wines and finding a whole range of things you like. Most people, however, will only graduate from one college. That’s why early research is so important.
Also, at a wine shop, the price on the tag is generally the price you will pay. Not so for colleges. You don’t know what you can afford until you apply and are accepted. So while “affordable” has to be one of the final deciding factors, it doesn’t necessarily have to be in your early searches.
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A plan for stressed 9th graders
A few weeks ago an old friend got in touch. Her daughter, who is in the 9th grade, is feeling a lot of stress about college admission. Even though it’s still years before she’ll apply to college, she’s already feeling pressure—mostly from her friends and classmates—to build up her resume and be ready for applications. She’s hearing about people deciding to double up on math classes to look more attractive to colleges. She’s wondering if she should be getting started on test prep. She wants to know how to strategize about the “right” clubs to join and the “best” classes to take next year. My friend asked if I could talk to her daughter and help her understand if that’s realistic.
It’s not realistic. Those are not the things a 9th grader ought to be doing.
But I also understand that “don’t listen to what you’re hearing every day, and will be hearing every day for more than two years” is pretty unrealistic. So I talked to her daughter and we put together a plan. We decided to acknowledge that she’s in a place where there is pressure to begin college prep early, and we decided to find a smarter way to go about it than worry about every rumor of “what colleges want.” I put it into a single page that she can print and have with her—in a notebook at school, on her desk at home, or both.
I’m sharing that one page, and I’d like to explain some of it.
The overarching idea: get out of the “am I worthy?” mindset and treat college like a relationship. All of the discussions, whether formal or casual, about what colleges want, how to look good to colleges, and how to make yourself stand out to to colleges have at their core the “am I worthy?” mindset. This mindset believes that preparing for college is all about showing colleges that you are worthy to be accepted, and that acceptance from colleges is a validation of your worthiness. This mindset isn’t healthy, it isn’t realistic, and it isn’t useful. Instead, you have to think of it like a relationship. Consider what it is you want, what you have to offer, and how to make the most of both of those sides and grow as a person. This is what people really mean when they talk about “fit.”
A few guiding rules:
1. If the only reason to do something is because “it looks good to colleges,” don’t do it. If you want to take extra math or science classes because you really like the subject and are hoping to keep yourself challenged, that’s great. Go for it. If you want to join an honor society, do what it takes to join it. If you want to keep yourself occupied in a lot of different activities, because you have a lot of different interests, by all means do. But don’t do anything of those things just because you have a sense that “it will look good to colleges.” That’s a lousy reason to do something, because it takes up time and energy that can be spent on doing something that’s actually interesting and important to you. When you find out what colleges are looking for in an applicant you won’t find any of them asking students to waste time on unproductive activities. That’s actually the opposite of what they want.
2. Focus on the qualitative, not numbers. You’re a person, not a resume. It’s a cliche to say “don’t be another statistic.” However, way too many ambitious high school students work really hard to become statistics. They obsess over GPA, test scores, and the number of accolades they can list. Don’t make yourself into a list. Always be thinking about the quality and richness of your experiences, not the numbers.
3. It’s not the choice you make, it’s how you explain it.
4. The keys to success are time management and a meditation practice.
5. Not sure what colleges want? Ask them. People get their ideas about what colleges want from all sorts of places. They rarely get their ideas from colleges themselves. Want to know what a college is looking for in its applicants? Go to the college website. Go to the admission section. They will probably tell you what’s important to them. You can also search for the college’s Common Data Set to see exactly what’s required and important to them. Simply search “[name of college] common data set.” Go to section C, “first-time, first year (freshman) admission,” which will begin somewhere around pages 6-10. Here is an example of a Common Data Set. Begin at page 7. If you have a specific question about admission requirements that isn’t answered on the website or their Common Data Set, email the admission department at that school and ask. Don’t rely on information that isn’t first-hand from the college. Especially don’t rely on fourth-hand information that comes from your friend’s mom’s coworker who talked to “someone in admissions.”
To do:
Look at writing prompts. Discuss often. How would you answer them now, and how can you improve your answers over the next year and a half? If you feel the need to prepare for college applications early, begin with writing prompts, not GPA or tests. Make these sorts of questions common discussion topics among you, your family, your friends, and your teachers. Don’t actually write essays yet. But think about how you would answer the question now and how you like to be able to answer the question by your senior year. Here are some samples to get started.
o “The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?” (from Common Application)
o “Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.” (from Common Application)
o “Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?” (from Common Application)
o “Why are you interested in the major you indicated as your first-choice major?” (from UT Austin)
o “Briefly discuss the significance to you of the school or summer activity in which you have been most involved.” (from Georgetown University)
Have five go-to colleges for looking things up. Don’t let “colleges” be abstract. Have several in mind, several that you’ve gotten to know. These don’t need to be colleges you will necessarily apply to—you have time to figure that out. But have a list to work with. Get on their mailing list; get to know their website; look them up in guides. Change as often as you like, but always have a list of around five. Here are some to begin with. I picked these almost randomly to get variety. A large public university and a small liberal arts college. Northeast, Atlantic Coast, Mid-west, and California. Places where you might major in art or major in business. Again, make your own list of five, but always have a list of five that you’re familiar with.
o University of Michigan Ann Arbor
Deepen your relationship with a mentor (including, if necessary, finding one). If you have at least one adult who is not a family member and who you can go to for advice, deepen your relationship with that person. Make an effort to talk to them more often and ask more questions. Discuss the essay prompts above with them. If you don’t yet have a mentor, whether formal or informal, think about how and where you might find one. Sometimes mentors just happen into your life. Sometimes you have to work to find them.
Read more texts, and read more difficult texts. By “text,” I don’t just mean books. Books are great, but they’re not the only kind of text. Whatever you like—books, music, art, video games, poetry, history, science, sports—spend more time with them, and push yourself to deeper understanding. The key here is to study what you love. Don’t only study things that are forced upon you, and don’t let the things you love only be passive distraction. If “study” and “things you love” sound like complete opposites to you, then you’re definitely not ready for college. The more you combine studying with the things you love, the more prepared you’ll be.
Want more? Some places to look for college advice and a better understanding of how the process works:
Newport, How to Be a High School Superstar
Notes from Peabody: the UVA Admission Blog
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Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.
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What 9th graders should do this spring
Work at being good at high school
You're halfway through your first year of high school, and there's so much to deal with. There are often a lot of positive things associated with this time: establishing new friendships and networks, trying out interesting electives, learning practical skills. But there's also plenty of negative things to deal with: disappointment, feeling overwhelmed, feeling disorganized, having difficulty figuring out where you belong. Take time--not just once but at least once a week--to identify what's going well and what isn't. What are the positives to accentuate and the negatives to eliminate? Being self-aware and honest with yourself is going to help you get through this year, and if you'll stay in that habit it will help you every year of high school and beyond.
Improve your grades. Set modest and achievable goals--like improving your grade in each class by just three points--and track your progress at that goal. Do this in a positive way by studying a little harder and giving an extra half hour of effort, but also do this in a negative way in the sense of working to eliminate one bad habit or time-waster.
Look for a mentor. Maybe you've already got a teacher, coach, or counselor who is a mentor to you. If not, go find one. You need to have at least one non-family adult who you trust to give you advice, to listen to you, and to have an academic relationship with beyond the time in the classroom. Maybe your school has provided you a mentor though some sort of advocacy program, but maybe that teacher is not really going to be a mentor to you for whatever reason.
Continue to explore your interests. Remember that the whole point of education is to help you be a productive, happy, and interesting person. You can’t and shouldn’t wait until some future date to start working on those things. Explore activities and interests that you haven’t before. Try out a new club, sit somewhere different for lunch, find an interesting question to ask a teacher you haven’t connected with yet. The great thing about high school is that you get to do a lot of growing and changing and developing—you’re not stuck being the same person you were at the beginning of this year. But the hard part is that you are in charge of that growth and development; it can’t happen passively. So try new things, read new things, listen to new things, talk about new things, think new things.
Build confidence and clarity. There are dozens of ways to actively reduce your stress and build your confidence. If you haven’t yet, try at least one. Practice meditation; begin a workout routine; join a book club; take a low-stress online course; take on an art project; volunteer; write a short story; find a mentor; be a mentor.
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Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.
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Looking forward to winter break for 9th, 10th, and 11th graders
What does a non-senior high school student need to do over this winter break to help prepare for college? In most senses, nothing. This is a break, after all. And, unlike 12th graders, you’re not finishing up applications for an early January deadline.
But in another sense, this is a great time to work on college applications, in the most broad way. The best way to approach college admission is as the beginning of a relationship. You’re trying to find the best match for you as a whole person. It’s not about proving that you’re worthy, or trying to rack up a lot of “impressive” things for your resume. You are, however, trying to be the best whole person that you can, and a break from school is a good time to plan and practice.
First, look over what I wrote for seniors. On top of finishing up college applications, I suggest that they should rest, read, re-asses, and spend quality time with people. Those are all true for you as well. Below is a list, which I first put together for my own 15 year-old, of things to try over the break that are neither difficult work nor passive consuming. I hope you’ll try some.
Go for a walk long walk, at least 30 minutes. Don’t play music or have any distractions. If you’re already a walker, take a different route than you’re used to. Pay attention to all your senses as you walk.
Watch some Healthy Gamer videos.
Clean and organize your room, bit by bit. Choose a small, discrete section--like a single shelf on a bookcase or one part of your desk--and clean it thoroughly. Then, when you’re ready, move on to the next. If you have the time, energy, and ambition, do a full “Konmari” of your room.
Read a novel. A good one. Preferably by an author you’ve never heard of. Read with your full attention.
Begin a meditation practice if you haven’t already got one. I like Andrew Weiss’s Beginning Mindfulness.
Improve your organization. I like Dan Charnas’s Everything in its Place: The Power of Mis-en-place to Organize Your Life, Work, and Mind.
Listen to some music. Preferably something you’ve never listened to before. Listen with your full attention.
Choose a work of art and learn as much about it as you can. Find information about it from as many good sources as possible. If it’s a work you can see in person over the break, even better.
Do a creative writing exercise.
Read a college profile. Or more than one.
Watch some School of Life videos.
Choose a place you’ve never been and plan an imaginary vacation there. Research online. Be as detailed as possible in your itinerary, learning as much as you can about the place.
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Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.
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What 9th graders should be doing this fall
A long time ago, the Dallas Maverick basketball team, while their new arena was under construction, practiced at the same gym where I went for morning workouts. On the first day of practice, weeks before the season began, there was already a big banner hanging up over the basketball court that read “The Playoffs Begin Now.” The point, as I understood it, was to remind the players that in order to make it to the playoffs they would need to be preparing then, not waiting until the end of the season.
In some ways, college applications work the same way. Your college admission begins now. You should feel no pressure whatsoever to know where you will go to college, what you will major in, or what you will write on your application essay. But all the information that goes on an application—transcript, list of activities, skills and accomplishments—starts compiling your first year of high school. Luckily, there are only a few major things to figure out now to make that process much easier and successful later. Keep reading.
Work at being good at high school. This has an academic side—take the most rigorous classes you can, get the best grades you can, be involved in your education. But just as important at this point are the social and emotional sides. You’re easing your way into a new and exciting (and challenging) place. You’re going to have missteps, and you’re going to change your mind about things. That’s normal, and that’s fine. If you’re feeling pressure to make yourself into a perfect resume—from your family, your school, your friends, or your self—just repeat this mantra to yourself and anyone else: the best way to prepare for college is to be a good high school student. If you find yourself feeling disconnected from high school because you’re already too immersed in test prep or overexerting yourself in too many activities to boost your college prospects, then it’s time to back off and reevaluate.
If by Halloween there’s a class that still isn’t working out—because it’s too easy, or too challenging, or not the right fit—bring this up now and see if there are schedule changes that can be made for the spring semester. Keep doing your best in the class, but understand that adjusting plans is something that all successful people do.
Explore your interests. Remember that the whole point of education is to help you be a productive, happy, and interesting person. You can’t and shouldn’t wait until some future date to start working on those things. Explore activities and interests that you haven’t before. Try out a new club, sit somewhere different for lunch, find an interesting question to ask a teacher you haven’t connected with yet. The great thing about high school is that you get to do a lot of growing and changing and developing—you’re not stuck being the same person you were at the end of last year or the beginning of this year. But the hard part is that you are in charge of that growth and development; it can’t happen passively. So try new things, read new things, listen to new things, talk about new things, think new things.
Begin good habits. There are two things you need for success in college and beyond: a meditation routine and a time management system. Now is the time to begin.
Start talking to your family about paying for college. Ask them what the plan is, what your priorities should be, and how you can contribute. If they give you any of the three most popular answers (“don’t worry about,” “we can’t afford anything,” or “we don’t have enough to afford it but make too much for financial aid,” then please ask them to reconsider. You need something more specific. You’ve got time to have these conversations, but now is the best time to begin them.
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What 9th and 10th graders should be doing this summer
Earlier this week I wrote about what current high school juniors should do this summer to prepare for effective and efficient college applications this fall. I know that lot of younger high school students are already thinking about college and how they can prepare. So let’s talk about good approaches for current 9th and 10th graders.
But before we begin, let me say that you should not do anything that is boring or onerous just because you think it might “look good to colleges.” Colleges prefer that you are in interesting person, and there’s nothing interesting about wasting your time and energy just because you’re insecure about someone else’s approval. Don’t jump through any metaphorical hoops (or literal ones, either, I guess) based on vague ideas of what colleges want.
What should sophomores do this summer to be better prepared for college?
Train. You're like a professional athlete during the off-season. You get a lot more flexibility with your schedule and a lot fewer people watching you as you work, but you've got to spend this time productively. Does this mean to fill up your day with summer school classes and be a constant student? No. Like pro athletes, find another way to enhance the skills you have.
Think about your notable skills and talents, the things that you may want to emphasize on college applications. Now find interesting ways to hone those skills and talents. How can you best prove and improve your resilience, passion, intellectual curiosity, initiative, talent, creativity, empathy, or leadership? The more unlike another high school class or program the activity is, the better.
So, for example, going to a weeklong camp for debaters is good, but volunteering to do door-to-door canvasing for a local political campaign is better. Reading books ahead of time for your 11th grade English class is good, but starting a book club that focuses on foreign or lesser-known books is better. Taking a class for adults at the local community college is good, but teaching younger kids in a summer program is better. The most important thing is that you focus on yourself and the qualities you want to improve, not focus on a vague sense of "looks good to colleges." Do everything you can with your summer time--in any setting, be it a summer job, summer camp, traveling, or staying close to home--to be a better person, not have a better résumé.
Push yourself. If you need to work or want a job, that's great. As far as college is concerned it really doesn't matter what that job is so long as you work hard at it and are reflective about what you learn from the job. As you go to work, remind yourself to work as hard as you can. And when you're done, ask yourself what you learned from that day's work. Those two things matter so much more to everyone than the job title or name of the company.
If you don't need to work and don’t want to work, then make other plans. And here's the trick: treat it like a job, in the sense that you decide to do your best and be reflective. Even if you have the cushiest summer imaginable--maybe you're going to spend two months as a VIP on a cruise ship sailing around the Caribbean--you can still get a lot out of this. Just begin each day reminding yourself to make the most of the day, and end each day reflecting about what you learned. Whatever is you do, it can be useful for your college applications and useful for your productive and interesting life.
Go someplace new. Choose someplace you've never been that you can visit this summer. Geographically, it doesn't matter how close or far the place is, so long as it's new to you. It can be another country, another state, or another neighborhood. Try to get a sense of how people unlike yourself spend their days, and do it with an open and empathetic mind.
Goal of 20. Another way you can make the most of your summer is to give yourself a goal of 20. Make 20 visits to local museums or parks. Have 20 intentional interactions with older members of your family asking them about their experiences. Read 20 books. Watch 20 of the best movies of all time. Find 20 items to donate to charity. Run 20 miles, spread out over as many days as you need. The number 20 is arbitrary, but an arbitrary number helps make a vague idea an achievable goal. Every time you knock out one of your 20, remind yourself to be deliberate and reflective.
What should 9th graders do this summer to be better prepared for college?
Anything! You can do just about anything, I mean it. In terms of preparing for the next three years of high school, preparing for college, and preparing for productive adulthood, there's no magical activity that you really must do to get ready. Do your thing, no matter what it is (within reason--if your current thing is chaotic or self-destructive then take care of that first).
At this point, what you do isn't nearly as important as how you do it. Whether you're doing amazing, once-in-a-lifetime things like volunteering with veterinarians at a wildlife refuge in Botswana or mundane things like babysitting your little brother, you can make the most of it. Be reflective. Ask yourself "how did today go, and what can I do tomorrow that will be interesting?" Every day. Read something that relates to what you're doing. Even if all you're doing is walking aimlessly around the neighborhood trying to find someone to hang out with, stop at the local library and learn about the history of your neighborhood and go inside shops you've never been in before. Take photos of weird things you notice around the neighborhood. Be engaged with your world and your mind, whatever you're doing in the world.
Write about your experiences. Writing about what you do on a regular basis serves several goals. For one, any college-bound person has got to be very comfortable with a lot of writing, so practicing on your own with your own assignments helps build up your discipline in a way that's more palatable to you. It will also help you maintain and deepen your self-reflection that's so vital for your off-time. You’re not trying to draft college application essays or make it into a novel. You’re just practicing writing in your own voice about what’s interesting to you.
Make a product. Toward the end of the summer, make some sort of product. Select some journal entries to make into full-on essays. Select and edit some photos to make a narrative photo essay. Make an interactive map of the places you visited. Make a book of advice for someone starting the job that you worked. Again, you can do almost anything. The idea is to curate and edit your experience into something that you can share. That's kind of a definition of education, isn't it?
Meet someone new. Right, of course you're going to meet new people over the summer. But what I'm talking about is to proactively and intentionally introduce yourself to new people that you've chosen to meet. Circumstance, coincidence, serendipity, and providence bring all sorts of people into our lives. That doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't work to bring others into our lives through our own intentions and effort.
Practice some form of meditation and contemplation. There's probably no better gift you can give yourself than to start the habit of meditation and contemplation. There are dozens of different traditions and techniques to fit any religious, cultural, and personal background. Here is a pretty solid introduction to 23 of them. Choose one and try it. It doesn't have to be a religious or spiritual exercise. It can just be good relaxation.
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Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.
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What should 9th and 10th graders do this spring?
Last March I wrote a post called “Don’t write a Coronavirus essay, but act like you will.” I made the pretty naive prediction that people would be back to “normal” school by fall at the latest. That was, obviously, wrong. I also said that students should not write an admissions essay about their pandemic experience “unless asked.” And now the Common Application does indeed have a short, optional prompt about Covid-19. But I stand by my main idea, that perhaps the best way to make it through this—or any other—really difficult period is to think about how you would hope to describe the experience once it’s passed. So my advice for 9th and 10th graders, high school students that are not yet in the thick of admissions season, remains to focus on being the best high school student possible, given your circumstances and limitations. Below is that original post from March, with all its bad assumptions about the time frame. “Month” and “months” should be changed to “year” and “years.” You may be out of the house more than you were last March, or possibly less. But a focus on actions and activities that make you feel like your most successful self is still what you should be doing right now.
You’re probably not at school right now. You’re probably not going back to school, at least physically, for at least two weeks. You may not go back to school until the next school year this fall. We’re in the middle of a global crisis, all of us.
And so the next month—months?—may be really difficult for you. Even given the best-case scenario—that your family is insulated from job loss, doesn’t need extra medical care, and has plenty of supplies—being together all day as you work and study with Social Distancing may reveal things about yourself or your family that you didn’t realize before. It may significantly change the way you think about school, about your place in the world, about what your future may look like.
If you’re a high school student planning to go to college, you’ll be tempted to write about this for an admissions essay. And that makes sense—it’s probably going to be one of the major events in your life so far. But don’t do it. It’s likely to be a major event in everyone’s life. As extraordinary as this is, its universality will make it difficult to write anything that stands out. It will be like other major life events that almost nobody writes about because they’re so common: starting high school, the difficulties of puberty, realizing that all families have weirdness in them. You should just decide right now that you’re not going to write about this unless asked.
But something that may make the month go better for you and the people around you is to act as though you are going to write an admissions essay about it.
I always advise students to begin the essay process not with the prompts or some story they think will be good, but to begin with thinking about their defining characteristics. Curiosity. Persistence. Kindness. Boundless energy. A talent for planning. Charisma. Those kinds of qualities. What are your defining characteristics? What do people praise you for? What kinds of actions or activities make you feel most successful at being yourself? Start there.
And then think about how you can best apply those qualities to this situation and the people you’re with. And I mean the people you are physically with, day after day. How can you practice, in ways that are meaningful even if they’re small, your best qualities? How can you best put your talents to use as you hunker down with your family and those around you? Once you’ve practiced that, very intentionally, for several days, then think about how you can use the same qualities to help the greater community around you. The answer may very well be that you can’t right now, that social distancing means you won’t interact with many people and definitely not strangers. But think about it and plan as much as possible.
Extreme situations and changes of routine can bring out the worst in us, but it can also bring out the best. Decide right now that you’re going to make sure it brings out your best by practicing your best each day.
Work to make this month as essay-worthy as possible. You don’t have to cure the sick or single handedly re-organize society or publicly criticize each mistake you see other people making. You just have to make this ordeal a way to keep doing the things you’re best at with those around you. Doing this won’t make a better essay, because you’re not going to actually write the essay. But it will help you make the most of this horrible situation. It will help you be an active and useful part of your suddenly much smaller community, and it will help you know yourself much better. Surely that’s more important than a single-use essay?
Be careful out there. Wash your hands. Be the best you can.
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What should high school students do over the winter break?
Last week I covered what seniors, who are finishing up college applications this month, might want to do with their winter break. Other high schoolers may not hav those particular deadlines looming, but they still get a break from school, and there are things they ought to consider doing over that break.
What should high school students do this summer to prepare for college?
Students finishing 11th grade and preparing for college applications have some very specific things they should do this summer. But what about everyone else? Many of the usual summer rituals for college-bound high school students are unavailable right now, and probably for the entire summer. No campus visits. No local museums or libraries. No summer trips. Probably no summer job. And, of course, no clear picture about what this fall will look like. There’s always a wide variety of circumstances when it comes to high school students in the summer. Some are getting very bored and restless, others are in a catastrophe, and most are somewhere in between. That’s true every summer, of course, but so many students’ circumstances have shifted drastically in the past few months, and almost no one is left unaffected.
So, then, what would I advise you to do this summer? Anything. You can do just about anything, I mean it.
Revised: what should seniors be doing now?
Apply with Sanity always has a “What Should I Be Doing Now?” section, updated for fall, spring, and summer. Obviously, the idea of what students should be doing right now is quite different, so I’ve updated the section for seniors to reflect what’s going on right now.
For 9th, 10th, and 11th grade, the “What Should I Be Doing Now?” entry is simply last week’s blog post “Don’t write a Coronavirus essay, but act like you will.” That’s really all the college admissions planning you should be doing right now while we’re in this emergency.
It is my largest hope right now that the Summer section, when it goes up in May, will be the same as every summer. Stay safe, stay home, and wash your hands.
What should 9th graders do this spring?
Work at being good at high school
You're half way through your first year of high school, and there's so much to deal with. There are often a lot of positive things associated with this time: establishing new friendships and networks, trying out interesting electives, learning practical skills. But there's also plenty of negative things to deal with: disappointment, feeling overwhelmed, feeling disorganized, having difficulty figuring out where you belong. Take time--not just once but at least once a week--to identify what's going well and what isn't. What are the positives to accentuate and the negatives to eliminate? Being self-aware and honest with yourself is going to help you get through this year, and if you'll stay in that habit will help you every year of high school and beyond.
What 9th graders need to do this fall
This has an academic side—take the most rigorous classes you can, get the best grades you can, be involved in your education. But just as important at this point are the social and emotional sides. You’re easing your way into a new and exciting (and challenging) place. You’re going to have missteps, and you’re going to change your mind about things. That’s normal, and that’s fine.
What should current 10th and 9th graders do this summer?
What should sophomores do this summer to be better prepared for college?
Train. You're like a professional athlete during the off-season. You get a lot more flexibility with your schedule and a lot fewer people watching you as you work, but you've got to spend this time productively. Does this mean to fill up your day with summer school classes and be a constant student? No. Like pro athletes, find another way to enhance the skills you have.