After 13 long years of schooling, the moment of truth has finally arrived. Have I done enough in my life to be able to present a strong college application? Did I exhibit strong passion and then act upon my interests in what matters most to me? Have my English classes been teaching me well enough for me to be able to 15-20 short essays? All my efforts beginning from day one of school have been ultimately geared towards ensuring that I have a happy and successful life in the future.
Knowing that college would be coming up soon, as a high school freshman, I wanted to try out as much as possible so I could fill up my college apps with tons of activities. I tried arts, sports, academics, service...pretty much any extracurricular area you can think of. But slowly, I narrowed down to 4-5 important activities that I continued to pour immense efforts and time into. These few clubs and activities are what I am most passionate about.
Thinking back on this now, I realize how foolish myself and thousands of others students around me were at the time. The number of activities in which you participate holds no value if you aren't actually interested in what you are doing. After all, the Common Application only lets you list a maximum of 10 activities. Joining every single club at school and participating in 4 sports teams while also learning an instrument and competing in Academic Bowl because your parents are forcing you will serve absolutely no advantage to you.
Of course there is no harm in trying out a variety of things and then later only moving forward with the top few options, but no matter what the most important part is doing what you love. Show everyone your natural talents and present your knowledge and confidence to the world. Even if it is an uncommon activity or something that holds low prestige, don't let that stop you; it should not matter to anyone but yourself. In fact, the 2020 MIT Application even encourages you talk about something like "underwater basket weaving" if that's really what you are passionate about and find pleasure in doing.There are no limits, except for you.
On top of activities, you also have to submit the dreaded SAT/ACT scores. Since sophomore year, everyone has been preparing for the exam, overly stressing out, taking it, and then depending on the score, wanting to take it again. We have all fallen into a vicious cycle that College Board and ACT Inc. have pulled us into. There's no way I would try to convince you that scores are not important at all - of course, they play a role in your admissions. But that's not all. If you know you are a strong-willed, hardworking person, then show it in other things.
Maybe your numbers don't support you, but that gives you the chance to take up a new opportunity to demonstrate your interest in another way. Let's say you really love science, regardless of what branch of science, but you don't get the perfect score you were expecting on the ACT. Never let that discourage you! There could be a multitude of factors that prevented you from reaching that target number, and there is a high possibility that none of those reasons have anything to do with your interest or intelligence. Rather than getting all worked up over that one double-digit number, find an interesting science competition or club at school to participate/compete in.
The point is, there is always a way to portray the kind of person you are without the numbers. And trust me, if you have a real passion for something, it's quite obvious to admissions officers.
Applying to college is definitely really different from what I expected. They don't care as much about things that you did for college but instead of things you actually care about. Moral of the story - Do what you love in life, keep stress levels on the low, and that automatically will leave you with a happy ending.
