How To Prepare For The College Admissions Process While In 8th Grade
The only thing worse than peaking in high school is peaking in middle school. At Cosmic, we have unfortunately encountered cases where parents come to us during their child’s senior year, bragging about all the first-place awards their child won in international competitions back in middle school. This often serves to mask the fact that the student did little to nothing in terms of extracurriculars during high school. Our response to these parents is always the same: at best, their child may gain admission to a decent state school, but the elite private universities and Ivy League schools are entirely out of reach.
No achievement in middle school, nor any courses taken at that level, will directly influence an admissions officer to accept an applicant. In fact, mentioning such achievements in a college application can actually convince an admissions officer not to admit the student. The only scholastic activity done before high school that indirectly impacts one’s competitiveness during the college admissions process is coursework. The classes a high school freshman takes are typically determined by the courses they completed in 8th grade. The more advanced classes a freshman can enroll in, the higher their course rigor will be rated by admissions officers.
Course rigor in high school—unlike winning first place in an international science fair in middle school—is a significant factor in college admissions. As a result, those who wish to begin the college admissions process early should focus exclusively on accelerating their curriculum in elementary and middle school. This means taking online classes and pressuring their elementary and middle school administrators to allow them to test out of lower-level courses in order to advance to higher-level ones. Families might also explore whether their child can take certain classes at a nearby high school.
Unless your child truly wants to engage in certain academic extracurriculars, it isn’t wise to force them to excel in volunteering, competitions, or research during middle school. From our experience, an impeccable extracurricular track record in middle school is a red flag and is negatively correlated with achieving the type of success needed to gain admission to an Ivy League college. It is vital to let kids be kids and allow their curiosity to develop organically. This will ensure they have the proper mindset to become the agents of change that Ivy League schools are looking for. Even if they start high school with zero extracurriculars, if they have taken the most advanced classes available to them, they will be just as prepared—on paper—to become the most competitive applicant for elite colleges as someone who forced themselves through the ultra-competitive extracurricular circuit in middle school.
There are plenty of extracurricular opportunities aimed at academically high-achieving freshmen who don’t have any prior experience outside of coursework. These opportunities can set students on a track to gaining admission to elite research programs like RSI (Research Science Institute) and Simons in their junior year, while also equipping them with the skills and experiences needed to cold-approach professors for research opportunities. If they are self-motivated to make a tangible change in their community, that can also be started in high school, alongside competing and excelling in competitions.
In short, the only thing early preppers (excluding those whose goal is being recruited for athletics) for the college admission process need to focus on is ensuring their loved ones are taking the most advanced classes they can excel in academically, to ensure they start freshman year of high school with the strongest course load possible.
If you want to talk with an admissions expert about what your child can be doing now in elementary or middle school to best prepare for the college admission process, reach out to us for a free consultation.
