Maximize Your High School Experience and College Admissions Tips: Recent Episodes
Dan Zhou
Welcome to the ReadyEdgeGo Podcast. We discuss all things high school experience and how to find what you’re passionate about. We also throw in some tips and tricks when it comes to college applications.
Career Choices – Following Interests vs Following OthersFor many students, career choices can be just as overwhelming as major and college choices. In the midst of pressure and confusion, the external influences of others can creep into our brain and make us second guess ourselves or change what we are thinking altogether. It’s human nature that what people say impacts how we think. However, there are downsides.
When it comes to career choices, this phenomenon happens all the time. Your parents are doctors, so they want you to be a doctor. Your cousin is a successful programmer, so now your dad says you should be one, too. Let’s face it: living up to someone else’s dream is not only hard; it’s also insincere. And believe it or not, following the path someone else has laid out for you usually hurts your chances of getting accepted to the best colleges.
If you don’t believe the last sentence, take a look at some of the reasons why following others can hurt your chances of getting accepted into colleges.
Poor Application Essays“Why are you interested in your major?” or “Why are you interested in this topic?” are common prompts for application essays, whether you’re applying to college or a competitive summer program like COSMOS. So whenever students answer with “My parents taught me to…”, that’s a red flag that reader interpret as “My parents told me to.”
Photo by Markus Spiske on UnsplashIvy League schools, top universities, and selective summer programs are looking for independent thinkers and genuine learners. There’s a HUGE stigma out in admissions against the helicopter mom who forced their kids to do something, be it medicine or engineering. Even if you did gain inspiration from your parents, relatives, or friends, you MUST have be able to express a genuine personal passion that transcends that influence. Your story needs to speak more to your own curiosities and aspirations rather than those of others.
Make Your Career Choices So Colleges Don’t View You NegativelyColleges, especially the top colleges, like Harvard and the Ivies, or even UC Berkeley and UCLA, look for students who are genuine in their intellectual pursuits. When we follow others, we start doing general things like starting a club because “it makes you look good” or participating in a sport or instrument because “it shows well-roundedness.” Following myths like these make you just like everyone else and read terribly to colleges.
Photo by Markus Spiske on UnsplashWhy? It’s clear that the interest that led to those activities wasn’t genuine. Whether you’re describing purposeless extracurricular involvement in college application essays, the activities section, or alumni interviews, top colleges in the US can tell whether you branched out and explored a real interest or simply did as you were told.
Choosing Your Career Path to Avoid Stress and Unhappiness When we follow someone else’s dreams and aspirations, we don’t get a chance to live our own. As a result of this, we see students (and their parents) make bad decisions with their time, all the time. Consider the following examples:
- Taking way too many AP courses.
- Taking weighted coursework not relevant to your interests, and not relevant to your major.
- Applying to 15 summer programs, only to find yourself enrolled in a ridiculously hard class that’s not interesting.
- Constantly searching for internships when college admissions don’t even care.
- Volunteering 200+ hours because you heard that it’s one way to stand out for college.
- Spending 7 hours a day, 5 days a week, for the entire summer on a “boot-camp” test prep course that only gets you to 1400, not the 1500 you were hoping for.
Get Personalized Help with Career Choices and Colleges to Apply to Chronic stress is an epidemic for high schoolers and their parents. It’s easy for kids to stay at home over-studying (when they should be out exploring the world and their interests), and it costs a lot of money to fix (from mindless SAT prep programs that barely raise kids’ scores to countless therapy sessions that kids seek out to counteract the pressure).
By providing good information and a smart way of living and learning, ReadyEdgeGo hopes to zap this stress. If you feel like you may be a victim of following others, please reach out to us so we can help you find your own interests.
We hope that this provides some valuable insight into how to release some of the stress you may have while making your college application profile even stronger.
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Finding Your Passion in Visual Arts Finding Your Passion in Visual Arts and studying for a visual arts education in today’s high tech world: Hi, my name is Liz. I am one of the counselors here at ReadyEdgeGo. My area of expertise is visual and digital arts. I am currently in my second year of […]
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When students and parents think of learning over the summer, reading is often at the bottom of the list of things to do to learn. In fact, it’s often not on the list at all when compared to summer programs, community college coursework, or test prep “boot camps”. Yet, it’s singularly one of the most […]
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The Best AP Classes to Take – 5 Reasons Why You Should Change Courses in High School Choosing the right courses or the best AP classes to take often happens after choosing the wrong courses first. Every year, we find common mistakes when it comes to course selection. Thankfully, most high schools are willing to […]
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What is UC Scout and How It Can Help You There is an exiting program called UC Scout and it has really provided a lot of opportunities that may be able to help you get into the college of your dreams, Any high schooler knows that course selection can be a nightmare, especially when your […]
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The Waitlisted Meaning And Definition. How to Manage Waitlist Acceptances After You’ve Already Committed The Waitlisted Meaning And Definition. Let’s face it, though being waitlisted is a good thing because Your university is interested in you. You did receive a waitlist acceptance letter or email. However, it is also stressful because You have already committed, […]
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How Colleges Use AP testing Scores During COVID-19 AP testing Scores During COVID-19. A lot has changed since COVID started, especially as it concerns the way colleges evaluate candidates numerically. For one, the SAT has largely been relegated to either an optional component. In some cases like that of the UC and CSU system, it […]
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What Does Waitlisted Mean And How to Respond When You’ve Been Waitlisted? What does waitlisted mean? And How do I respond or get accepted off a waitlist? The waitlisted result has become one of the most common results in college apps. Yet, very few people know how it works or why colleges even do it […]
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Why You Should Self Study for the SAT In today’s environment, there are many reasons why you should self study for the SAT. COVID-19 has fundamentally changed standardized testing. For one, the College Board is trying to set a Guinness World Record for how many tests it can cancel in a row. But beyond just […]
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Test dates for the SAT are being cancelled left and right. Yet, you still may be wondering: Should I still take the SAT? It turns out some students should, while others should not. We will be reviewing which students would benefit from taking the SAT and which should spend their time and money elsewhere. Who […]
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How to Ask for a Letter of Recommendation During COVID-19 Ever wonder how to ask for a letter of recommendation? What are the proper or official steps if any? Or what teachers should I ask for letters of recommendation? Whether you’re applying for summer programs like UC COSMOS or you’re getting ready to apply for […]
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