What should I focus on throughout High School
I am going into sophomore year and I don't know what to focus on.
ALL OF THEM REALLY! I mean...each of these can and should be achieved to the best of your ability as long as you manage your time well, cause these activities usually have peak periods that differ from each other throughout the year.
The APs show course rigor and they help you to transition to smoothly form high school to college level difficulty. The number APs tho is up to you.
The gpa should be around 3.8 upwards if you are aiming for top schools. Any reasons for anything below that should valid (eg spent time in ecs or had emergencies etc) and point them out in your application in one way or the other.
1500+ SAT is not only a good thing to have but is also VERY ACHIEVABLE with consistent practice and improvement.
The robotics contest is a great way to not just show colleges your passion for engineering, cs, math or whatever you plan to major in but you can learn a ton of valuable skills, both soft (eg teamwork, leadership) and hard (eg coding), that you'll end up being grateful you developed while in high school. Plus, as someone who loves STEM competitions, I can tell you they are FUNN!
Overall, with good time management, you can and should achieve all these and much more. You'll be prepared for college academically, mentally and socially, and will likely get into a great one at that.
From a fellow highschooler ;)
My dream school is UC Berkeley and I don't know how many AP's I should take if I want to have a shot at getting in.
Okay, so there’s like a million different articles on this, (including on CollegeVine), which I recommend reading, but the main thing is that it depends. If you go to a school that offers 7, taking 7 will look excellent. But if you go to a school that offers 27, then taking 7, especially if you skip things related to your interests like AP Calc BC, AP CSA, and AP Physics, might not look that rigorous.
The golden range for schools like Cal is generally 8-12. But something to consider is that if you can end up taking 13, but that’ll drop your GPA below 3.5, it’s not worth it. Take as many as you can while managing to learn and succeed in all of them.
One last thing is that your course rigor is more than just a number. If you’re pursuing CompSci and robotics (which are really cool, by the way), taking one more AP that’s unrelated to your interests like 2D Art or Music Theory may not be worth it. Keep in mind that this only applies if you’re not interested in those, as it’s good to explore what you’re interested in, even if they’re not directly related.
Good luck, I hope this helped.
If you really want Berkeley, the SAT is NOT a requirement. You should still aim for a 1400+ something just in case so you have options if Berkeley doesn't work out, but all UC schools are Test Blind, they don't consider SAT or ACT scores at all! Make sure to build up the rest of that application, and good luck! :D
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