We have officially passed out from class 9 and we are in grade 10 of our mini High School short series. Now college applications is a very stressful time and that's why I've made this series where I tackle each High School class one at a time to tell you guys what exactly you should be focusing on in each class. Now I've personally graduated from Cornell I've studied at Harvard and looked at numerous amounts of students profiles to see what helps them get into the top colleges in the US. IV Leagues top 50 colleges you name it.
In today's article we are going to look at what you
should be doing as a class 10 student to maximize your chances of getting that
dream University that you have in mind. Class 10 is all about identifying your
interest and your strengths so while focusing on your academics we're also
going to explore a variety of activities that you'll be doing as well as
understanding where your career interest lies for example if someone is
interested in a STEM related major should they be doing biology or engineering
or chemistry or mathematics.
Seeking
Advice from External Person
The first thing we're going to address is seeking
advice from an external person now typically I would say that if you are in a
high school who has a school counsellor go to them and pick their brains set up
a meeting with them maybe once every two weeks and just talk about career
prospects it's always good to listen when someone is offering advice for free.
Especially when they're trying to tell you different things that you may not
know this is a great time to just hear all of the options that are available to
you and then see what best fits this can also mean along with all of the advice
that you read maybe watch a couple Day in the Life videos you can find these on
YouTube or Instagram, reels if you want to go into the short form content a lot
of the biomedical Engineers prospective students.
If you could probably spend some time with them
shadowing to see what specific jobs actually look like and what an entire day
looks like after you've done that it helps you short list and see if you could
be in their shoes and you envision yourself doing similar work and something
that you would enjoy.
Maintaining
Academic Excellence
The second thing is maintaining academic excellence
and rigor now we already tackled this in the class 9. But I'm just going to
repeat myself your trajectory academically in high school needs to be like this
so you always need to be improving even if it is a slight Improvement something
that's like a plate where you're maintaining a good grade throughout High
School is also acceptable but in no case should your grades drop. This can
definitely you know put you in a spiral show a downward trajectory and it
doesn't look good as a student now otherthan your high school grades and making
sure you're keeping up with whatever tests that are being done in school there are
two new things that you'll be doing in class 10.
Start
Studying for the SAT or the ACT
The first one is your goal is going to be to start
studying for the SAT or the ACT I know that many colleges are test optional but
they are slowly mandating tests and even if they are not submitting a strong
SAT score or an ACT score definitely helps improve your chances of getting into
a top university.
So in class 10 along with just studying for the SAT
your goal should be to write at least three fulllength sat tests. This can
include the practice SAT test and any two other online SAT test that you find
again it's not just something that you do and just check off genuinely try to
improve after each attempt obviously since you've just started to study for
this particular test you may not be the best maybe like 2% of the students will
get like a 1550 on their first attempt but the rest of us like you and me
probably need some more practice to keep on improving so class 10 is the right
place to start doing that if your plan is to come to the US for your college
education.
US-based
SIM Card
The one thing you will most definitely need is a
us-based SIM card now this is where I'd like to thank mint mobile for being the
partner for today's article they have got you completely covered now as soon as
you come to the US you'll be bombarded with these phone plans that are 50, 60
even $70 per month as an international student or just a college student in
general. You should definitely not be spending this much amount of money just
on a phone plan there's a much better option out there mint mobile at just $15
per month gives you unlimited talk text and data of 5G.
If you need a physical SIM they will mail it to you
for free or you can simply use the email that they provide now the link for
mintmobile is going to be in the description below get your phone plan for as
low as $15 per month.
AP Exams
AP exams are only held once a year which is in May so
as you are entering class 10 if you start studying for these exams by the time
it's actually time for you to write the test it'll be May you'll be finishing
class 10 AP tests there are so many different types and I'd say that since this
is the first time you'll be writing AP test choose 3 to 10 that best fit you in
terms of aptitude and interest most of the syllabus will overlap with what
you're already studying in school so it's not something like you'll be studying
something completely different but throughout the year. You should have plenty
of time to study for the test and get a good score a good score is considered
anywhere like a four or a five and if you can take these AP exams it'll take a
large chunk off of your plate for next year the third point is setting goals
and getting unique experiences so for the summer of Class 10.
I want you to actually get some amount of official
experience this can be either in the form of shadowing someone and then you
know aiming at getting a letter or a certificate that you've completed this
many number of hours or working in the community or maybe going for like a
summer abroad experience doing a pre-ol program. It can be anything but it's
not the time just to do a few things that you feel like you know are fun to do
and explore your interest it needs to be something official because you may
need to write about this in your college applications engaging in impactful
extracurricular activities now.
Exploring
Activities
Class 9 was all about exploring what activities you
like but class 10 is a little bit more streamlined you have a rough idea of
what you actually like doing but your activity should have some sort of an
impact typically this impact is societal or something that benefits your local
community these type of activities look really good on college applications so
maybe the idea of pursuing such activities further will help strengthen your
profile now other than the activities section.
Your college application will also have an honour
section this is separate to extracurricular activities and you have the option
of adding up to five different honors all five of them are optional but again
because we're competing for that top spot in a good University. We want to make
sure you have five really valuable honors out of these five it's okay to have
maybe two or even three honors from class 10 the reason I didn't mention any
honors from class 9 is because I feel like that's a little too early class 10
onwards showcases that it's recent enough to put in your profile and have a
good impact for the reader, the college admissions officer who's actually looking
at your college app.
Science
Olympiad or an essay writing Scholarship
Now these activities or honors particularly can
include something like a Science Olympiad or an essay writing scholarship that
you won or a summer program that you got admitted into through like a full ride
scholarship anything monetary value or anything where you're competing against
a certain group of people that is nationally or internationally recognized is
very good if you cannot get two to three
at least try to get one good honor that you can show that you've done in class
10.
Don't wait for someone to come and hand this over to
you or your school counsellor teachers to you know make you do these because
you're doing this for your college application you have to take that additional
effort to find which activity or honor would be best suited you may even have
to try out a few things before you get something valuable for example getting a
particular rank in a math Olympia isn't as easy as it sounds someone may fail
at doing that a couple times before they actually get a good rank.
