Goal: Show that you’re serious about building and creating.

• Build things. Literally anything.

• Get involved in a robotics club early.

• Get build kits when you’re younger, and then graduate into your own unique build ideas by the time you’re hitting high school.

• Get into ISEF and place high.

• Get into engineering olympiads or other competitions and place high.

• Take as many physics courses as you can, and make them as hard as you can manage. And get good grades in those classes, obviously.

• Read tons of books and research papers. Gain membership to the best journals in your field. Read them. Learn what various colleges that you like are pursuing in your field of interest.

• Play with wires and electronics. Get an Arduino or Raspberry Pi.

• Be interdisciplinary. Pursue both electrical and mechanical builds. Get a bit into coding. Learn advanced math.

• Find engineering summer programs. Make the most out of every summer. If you don’t get into the must competitive camps and programs, just work on your own projects at home.

• Create a Service Project that involves building something.

• Create a Passion Project that involves building something.

• Get people involved in your projects so you can talk about working in a group. Engineering tends to be a bit of a solo act among high schoolers, but colleges want to be sure that you can work well in a team. If you can bring your project into a school engineering club or just get a couple close friends involved, it will benefit you greatly (and your friends as well).

• Bring your teachers into these projects. Get them involved early so they have a vested interest in writing you the best recommendation letter possible! And so that they’ll know what your project is about, making it actually possible for them to write a fantastic rec letter.

• Get other adults involved in what you’re doing. If you can talk to a dentist about a dental build, that will help you take your build to the next levels. Talk to a computer scientist if your build involves a lot of tech. Talk to a car mechanic if your build is about cars. Talk to a special education specialist if your build helps students in special education. Whatever it is you’re building, seek professional guidance and feedback.

And DOCUMENT EVERYTHING. I honestly cannot stress this enough. Take pictures of every step of every process. Take videos. Parents, if your kid isn’t very into video and pictures, you can make sure those pictures and videos happen. Keep everything in a big folder. This is one of the greatest ways you can contribute to your child’s college admissions success. Students, you’re going to want to clearly demonstrate the work you’ve done when it comes time to apply to colleges. Many colleges allow for portfolios of your work which is a huge benefit to your application, if you have the pictures and work to demonstrate.

Goal: Show that you’re serious about using business or finance to help people in some specific way.

• Take advanced math and economics courses. Statistics can also make sense. Depending on what you want to do with business, you might also end up with a computer science course. Take advantage of any special course offerings at your school!

• Get a job. It can just be a summer job or a weekend job. But, get out there and see what the real world of business and work looks like.

• Start your own small business. You can try tutoring (very common, but it can work). You can sell some kind of artistic product or turn a hobby into a revenue stream. You can sell your skills on Fiverr or elsewhere in the gig economy. But again, get out there in the real business world and get experience.

• Get into some business competitions and place high.

• Read tons of books and research papers. Gain membership to the best journals in your field. Read them. Learn what various colleges that you like are pursuing in your field of interest.

• Join DECA and/or FBLA. Join any investing club at your school if you want to get into investing. Join an economics club. And, if those clubs don’t exist, start them!

• Get into business and/or finance during your summers. Find summer programs that are business-focused. There are programs that will help you dream up and launch a business.

• Check out investment simulators like the Stock Market Game or TD Bank’s Virtual Stock Market Game if you want to get into investing.

• Create a Service Project that involves your small business.

• Create a Passion Project that involves your small business.

• Get people involved in your projects so you can talk about working in a group. Colleges want to know that you can work well in a team. If you have a small business, hire a few people. If you’re developing a product, bring that into your small business club at school. This will benefit you greatly (and your friends!).

• Bring your teachers into your projects. Get them involved early so they have a vested interest in writing you the best recommendation letter possible! And so that they’ll know what your project is about, making it actually possible for them to write a fantastic rec letter.

• Get other adults involved in what you’re doing. If you want to sell art, talk to a professional artist (or semi-professional, whoever you can get access to). If you want to sell your services, talk to sales and marketing people. If you want to offer tutoring services, talk to a professional tutor or curriculum designer. Whatever it is you’re selling, seek professional guidance and feedback.

And DOCUMENT EVERYTHING. I honestly cannot stress this enough. Take pictures of every event you host. Take a video of yourself sending out your first package. Get group photos of you and your design team or your employees. Parents, if your kid isn’t very into video and pictures, you can make sure those pictures and videos happen. Keep everything in a big folder. This is one of the greatest ways you can contribute to your child’s college admissions success. Students, you’re going to want to clearly demonstrate the work you’ve done when it comes time to apply to colleges. You can start a website now and add to it over time. You should definitely have a website running by Junior year.

Goal: Show that you’re serious about real math, not the fake math that they teach in high school!

• Take advanced math courses at school as a start.

• Find real math courses online (recommendations) or at a local community college or university near you. Many high schools will allow for and help you with dual enrollment. Take advantage of that. Try to enroll in at least one real math course that involves complex proofs. Real math is not just solving equations. Real math is proofs.

• Do Math Olympiad and place high. There are also Math Olympiads for younger students.

• Read tons of books and research papers. Gain membership to the best journals in your field. Read them. Learn what various colleges that you like are pursuing in your field of interest.

• Conduct math research. This can be through a summer program; it can be based on your own research; or you can find a professor or even graduate student to work with.

• Join a math club at school and any other clubs that pursue math at a high level. If those clubs don’t exist, start them!

• Get into intensive math programs during your summers. There’s a huge range here of programs that are easier and harder to get into. For the harder programs, always plan to apply two years in a row. You may not get in the first year, but keep building up your math portfolio and apply again. Some of these programs have mentioned that they tend to accept almost entirely second-year applicants, meaning you have an almost zero chance of getting in your first year. But, you will learn a ton from these applications! They are well worth the effort in so many ways.

• Create a Service Project that involves math.

• Create a Passion Project that involves math.

• Get people involved in your projects so you can talk about working in a group. Colleges want to know that you can work well in a team. If you’re working on research, or you want to create a program that uses advanced math, or you want to build a device that operates on some crazy math…bring in your programmer or engineer friends and make it happen. This will greatly benefit you (and your friends!).

• Bring your teachers into your projects. Get them involved early so they have a vested interest in writing you the best recommendation letter possible! And so that they’ll know what your project is about, making it actually possible for them to write a fantastic rec letter.

• Get other adults involved in what you’re doing. For math research, you’ll likely want and need someone to bounce ideas off of. Try to get a mentor. This can be your high school math teachers at first, but eventually start looking for graduate students and professors.

And document your work. Take pictures of any models or simulators you make. If you end up running some code, add it to your website so people can see what you’re working on. If you put together complex proofs, write them up and put them on your website. You need to clearly demonstrate the work you’ve done when it comes time to apply to colleges. You can start a website now and add to it over time. You should definitely have a website running by Junior year.

Goal: To convince the admissions committee that you want nothing else in life other than to be a doctor, that there is absolutely no doubt in your soul that this is your calling.

A brief discussion of why: Colleges do have to deal with students dropping out or just dropping a major. This is very heavily true for pre-med students. They make introductory Biology and Chemistry courses as hard as possible to try to weed out those who aren’t “committed enough”. They really want to make sure that when you say you want to be pre-med, it’s not just because that’s what your mom or dad wants, or because you think it sounds like a sort of cool job.

Demonstrated Interest is even more important if you’re planning to apply pre-med.

• Take advanced math and science courses at school and show as much rigor as possible.

• Take extra science courses online or at a local community college or university near you. Many high schools will allow for and help you with dual enrollment. Take advantage of that.

• Shadow doctors as much as you possibly can.

• Volunteer in a hospital. Get a job in a hospital. Be in a hospital in any way you can manage and as much as you can manage.

• Do Science Olympiad, Biology Olympiad, or Chemistry Olympiad and place high.

• Read tons of books and research papers. Gain membership to the best journals in your field. Read them. Learn what various colleges that you like are pursuing in your field of interest.

• Conduct science research. This can be through a summer program; it can be with a school teacher or college professor; or you can just conduct your own experimentation at home. You might build off of a science fair project, or just have a cool idea that can be scientifically tested.

• Do the science fair, take it seriously, place high.

• Go on to ISEF, ideally.

• Join science clubs at school. If those clubs don’t exist or aren’t good, start new ones!

• Get into intensive science programs during your summers. There’s a huge range here of programs that are easier and harder to get into. For the harder programs, always plan to apply two years in a row. You may not get in the first year, but keep building up your portfolio and apply again. Some of these programs have mentioned that they tend to accept almost entirely second-year applicants, meaning you have an almost zero chance of getting in your first year. But, you will learn a ton from these applications! They are well worth the effort in so many ways.

• Create a Service Project that involves science and/or medicine. You might end up building a product or creating a resource that can help patients. Get interdisciplinary!

• Create a Passion Project that involves science and/or medicine.

• Get people involved in your projects so you can talk about working in a group. Colleges want to know that you can work well in a team. Get interdisciplinary. Work with students and adults in other fields to broaden the horizons and applicability of your research or projects.

• Bring your teachers into your projects. Get them involved early so they have a vested interest in writing you the best recommendation letter possible! And so that they’ll know what your project is about, making it actually possible for them to write a fantastic rec letter.

• Get other adults involved in what you’re doing. If you shadow doctors, try to get them to weigh in on something in your own research. You can also ask them for a position working with them on their research. Even if it’s just quick questions or a small interview, get lots of professional feedback.

Put everything on a website. You need to clearly demonstrate the work you’ve done when it comes time to apply to colleges. You can start a website now and add to it over time. You should definitely have a website running by Junior year.

Goal: Show colleges that you’re actually interested in Psychology, and you’re not just pretending to be something other than pre-med.

Many students will pretend to be psych instead of pre-med because pre-med is such a more competitive category. So, you need to really make it clear that you’re not just pretending, and you really do want to pursue Psychology for its own sake.

• Take a Psychology course or several, if possible. Take some advanced math and science courses at school and show as much rigor as possible.

• Take extra psychology courses online or at a local community college or university near you. Many high schools will allow for and help you with dual enrollment. Take advantage of that.

• Volunteer in a hospital, senior center, veterans’ center or anywhere you might interact with people who have brains! This might turn into some psychology research. It might just give you anecdotal evidence for something. Or you might just add it to your list of service activities. Any of those options can be highly useful!

• Do the International Psychology Olympiad and place high.

• Read tons of books and research papers. Gain membership to the best journals in your field. Read them. Learn what various colleges that you like are pursuing in your field of interest.

• Conduct science research. This can be through a summer program; it can be with a school teacher or college professor; or you can just conduct your own surveys from home. You might build off of a science fair project, or just have a cool idea that can be scientifically tested.

• Do the science fair, have a psychology-based project, take it seriously, place high.

• Join psychology clubs at school. This could be peer counseling, something more academic like an AP psych club, or something that dives into lots of past psychological case studies. If those clubs don’t exist or aren’t good, start new ones!

• Get into psychology programs during your summers.

• Create a Service Project that involves Psychology. You might end up building a product or creating a resource that can help patients. Get interdisciplinary!

• Create a Passion Project that involves Psychology.

• Get people involved in your projects so you can talk about working in a group. Colleges want to know that you can work well in a team. Get interdisciplinary. Work with students and adults in other fields to broaden the horizons and applicability of your research or projects.

• Bring your teachers into your projects. Get them involved early so they have a vested interest in writing you the best recommendation letter possible! And so that they’ll know what your project is about, making it actually possible for them to write a fantastic rec letter.

• Get other adults involved in what you’re doing. Even if it’s just quick questions or a small interview, get lots of professional feedback.

Put everything on a website. You need to clearly demonstrate the work you’ve done when it comes time to apply to colleges. You can start a website now and add to it over time. You should definitely have a website running by Junior year.

Goal: Show colleges that you’re actually interested in Politics.

• Take more history courses. Psychology is also good. If your school offers anything specific to politics, take that as well. Show as much rigor as possible.

• Take politics, psychology, and/or history courses online or at a local community college or university near you. Many high schools will allow for and help you with dual enrollment. Take advantage of that.

• Volunteer for a political group. You should probably start with a local politician running for something like county council or maybe state congress. Those campaigns will be smaller, and you have a chance of actually getting to do exciting work. If you volunteer for the national Democratic or Republican presidential candidate…you’ll likely just be doing boring grunt work. You can also volunteer for lobbying groups and other activism groups.

• Read tons of books and research papers. Gain membership to the best journals in your field. Read them. Learn what various colleges that you like are pursuing in your field of interest.

• Conduct political research. This can be through a summer program; it can be with a school teacher or college professor; or you can just conduct your own surveys and reading at home.

• Do the International Political Science Olympiad and place high.

• Join political clubs at school. This could be directly political, more psychological, more historical. Debate is a great activity here. Student government would make sense here. Advocacy clubs would also make sense. If those clubs don’t exist or aren’t good, start new ones!

• Get into political programs during your summers.

• Create a Service Project that involves politics or advocacy.

• Create a Passion Project that involves politics or advocacy.

• Get people involved in your projects so you can talk about working in a group. Colleges want to know that you can work well in a team. Get interdisciplinary. Work with students and adults in other fields to broaden the horizons and applicability of your research or projects.

• Bring your teachers into your projects. Get them involved early so they have a vested interest in writing you the best recommendation letter possible! And so that they’ll know what your project is about, making it actually possible for them to write a fantastic rec letter.

• Get other adults involved in what you’re doing. Even if it’s just quick questions or a small interview, get lots of professional feedback.

Put everything on a website. You need to clearly demonstrate the work you’ve done when it comes time to apply to colleges. You can start a website now and add to it over time. You should definitely have a website running by Junior year.

Goal: Show colleges that you’re actually interested in Economics.

• Take all the Economics courses you can. Psychology and history courses can also make sense. Show as much rigor as possible.

• Take Economics courses online or at a local community college or university near you. Many high schools will allow for and help you with dual enrollment. Take advantage of that.

• Get involved with a Think Tank or other economic or political group. Pick something related to your interests. Sure, you like Economics. But, what do you want to do with it? Work at the IMF or World Bank and try to help struggling countries? Then try to get an internship or volunteer position related to that. Want to be more of a political advisor in America? Find a lobbying group or think tank doing just that.

• Read tons of books and research papers. Gain membership to the best journals in your field. Read them. Learn what various colleges that you like are pursuing in your field of interest.

• Do the International Economics Olympiad and place high.

• Conduct Economics research. This can be through a summer program; it can be with a school teacher or college professor; or you can just conduct your own surveys and reading at home.

• Join economics clubs at school. DECA and FBLA can work here. There’s a lot of overlap between Economics and Politics, also between Economics and Business. So, follow your interests and check out the recommendations for those majors as well. Advocacy clubs could also make sense. If those clubs don’t exist or aren’t good, start new ones!

• Get into Economics programs during your summers.

• Create a Service Project that involves Economics, business, politics, advocacy.

• Create a Passion Project that involves Economics, business, politics, advocacy.

• Get people involved in your projects so you can talk about working in a group. Colleges want to know that you can work well in a team. Get interdisciplinary. Work with students and adults in other fields to broaden the horizons and applicability of your research or projects.

• Bring your teachers into your projects. Get them involved early so they have a vested interest in writing you the best recommendation letter possible! And so that they’ll know what your project is about, making it actually possible for them to write a fantastic rec letter.

• Get other adults involved in what you’re doing. Even if it’s just quick questions or a small interview, get lots of professional feedback.

Put everything on a website. You need to clearly demonstrate the work you’ve done when it comes time to apply to colleges. You can start a website now and add to it over time. You should definitely have a website running by Junior year.

Goal: Show colleges that you’re actually interested in Computer Science/coding.

• Take all the computer science courses you can at school. Show as much rigor as possible.

• Take computer science courses online or at a local community college or university near you. Many high schools will allow for and help you with dual enrollment. Take advantage of that. There are seriously SO many options online to learn coding. If you don’t master at least one coding language by the time you’re applying, it’s likely that elite schools won’t take you seriously as a candidate.

• Learn at least one coding language before you apply to colleges.

• Get involved with groups that use coding to solve problems. Hack-a-thons sometimes have a clear purpose other than fun. Hack4Impact and other groups are geared towards making a difference.

• What do you want to do with Computer Science? Data analysis? App development? Work with engineers to build devices? Work with businesses to build useful software? Once you narrow that down, pursue opportunities in those areas. Internships, jobs, volunteer positions, etc.

• Read tons of books and research papers. Gain membership to the best journals in your field. Read them. Learn what various colleges that you like are pursuing in your field of interest.

• Do the US Computing Olympiad and place high.

• Join coding clubs at school. If some of them are service-oriented, that’s great. If those clubs don’t exist or aren’t good, start new ones! You can also join clubs based on other interests and then help that club with its web page development or creating some useful application.

• Get into coding programs during your summers. This one comes with a bit of a caveat. If you don’t know anything about coding, then summer programs can be amazing for teaching you lots of basics and getting you up to speed, fast. If you’re almost anything other than a beginner…a lot of summer programs won’t be as helpful. You’ll want to be more selective here. Some programs do give you the opportunity to take your skill and really develop it through a project. But, if there’s nothing good near you, then just work on your own projects.

• Create a Service Project that involves coding.

• Create a Passion Project that involves coding.

• Get people involved in your projects so you can talk about working in a group. Colleges want to know that you can work well in a team. Get interdisciplinary. Work with students and adults in other fields to broaden the horizons and applicability of your research or projects.

• Bring your teachers into your projects. Get them involved early so they have a vested interest in writing you the best recommendation letter possible! And so that they’ll know what your project is about, making it actually possible for them to write a fantastic rec letter.

• Get other adults involved in what you’re doing. Even if it’s just quick questions or a small interview, get lots of professional feedback.

Put everything on a website. You need to clearly demonstrate the work you’ve done when it comes time to apply to colleges. You can start a website now and add to it over time. You should definitely have a website running by Junior year.

Goal: Show colleges that you’re actually interested in History.

• Take all the history courses you can. Show as much rigor as possible.

• Take additional history courses online or at a local community college or university near you. Many high schools will allow for and help you with dual enrollment. Take advantage of that.

• Get involved with a Think Tank or other research group. You’ll need to narrow down your interests from “History”, which is massive, to something smaller. This will come from research over time. Historians focus on one country or region; they focus on one resource (like oil); they focus on maybe one race of people or one socioeconomic group. There are many ways to focus your interests.

• Read tons of books and research papers. Gain membership to the best journals in your field. Read them. Learn what various colleges that you like are pursuing in your field of interest.

• Do the International History Olympiad and place high.

• Conduct historical research. This can be through a summer program; it can be with a school teacher or college professor; or you can just conduct your own research at home.

• Join history clubs at school. Economics or Psychology clubs could work. Debate makes some sense. Advocacy clubs could also make sense. If those clubs don’t exist or aren’t good, start new ones!

• Get into history and research programs during your summers.

• Create a Service Project that involves history.

• Create a Passion Project that involves history.

• Get people involved in your projects so you can talk about working in a group. Colleges want to know that you can work well in a team. Get interdisciplinary. Work with students and adults in other fields to broaden the horizons and applicability of your research or projects.

• Bring your teachers into your projects. Get them involved early so they have a vested interest in writing you the best recommendation letter possible! And so that they’ll know what your project is about, making it actually possible for them to write a fantastic rec letter.

• Get other adults involved in what you’re doing. Even if it’s just quick questions or a small interview, get lots of professional feedback.

Put everything on a website. You need to clearly demonstrate the work you’ve done when it comes time to apply to colleges. You can start a website now and add to it over time. You should definitely have a website running by Junior year.

Goal: Show colleges that you’re actually interested in Art History. Or, if you’re pursuing studio art, then show colleges that you have artistic talent and academic interest in art or music.

• Take all the art or music courses you can. Art History can also make sense. Show as much rigor as possible.

• Take lots of art or music courses online or at a local community college or university near you. Many high schools will allow for and help you with dual enrollment. Take advantage of that. Your school will likely not be able to fully develop your artistic talent. You will need outside coaching.

• Produce art or music! Write your own songs and record them. Create your own paintings, sculptures, etc. Take pictures, build up your portfolio! Do you think Juilliard would prefer a student with her own album or two, or a student who plays guitar sometimes on the weekends a little bit? Same goes for art.

• Read tons of books and research papers on art and music. Gain membership to the best journals in your field. Read them. Learn what various colleges that you like are pursuing in your field of interest. Pay particular attention to any avant garde or weird stuff coming out of your field. Creative and expressive fields benefit more from the bizarre!

• If you’re 8-12 years old, do the Arts Olympiad.

• Go to competitions and place high. There are tons of competitions. Find ones near you and work your way up to regionals, nationals, and internationals.

• Join art or music clubs at school. If those clubs don’t exist or aren’t good, start new ones!

• Get into art or music programs during your summers.

• Create a Service Project that involves art or music.

• Create a Passion Project that involves art or music.

• Get people involved in your projects so you can talk about working in a group. Colleges want to know that you can work well in a team. Get interdisciplinary. Work with students and adults in other fields to broaden the horizons and applicability of your research or projects.

• Bring your teachers into your projects. Get them involved early so they have a vested interest in writing you the best recommendation letter possible! And so that they’ll know what your project is about, making it actually possible for them to write a fantastic rec letter.

• Get other adults involved in what you’re doing. Even if it’s just quick questions or a small interview, get lots of professional feedback.

And DOCUMENT EVERYTHING. I honestly cannot stress this enough. Take pictures of every step of your art process. Take videos of your earliest performances and practices and your latest.

Parents, if your kid isn’t very into video and pictures, you can make sure those pictures and videos happen. Keep everything in a big folder. This is one of the greatest ways you can contribute to your child’s college admissions success.

Students, you’re going to want to clearly demonstrate the work you’ve done when it comes time to apply to colleges. Many colleges allow for portfolios of your work which is a huge benefit to your application if you have the pictures and work to demonstrate.