Thanks!

The thing is, my school seems to have so many projects! We have to do like, one for every single subject and they’re all pretty major ones, including research –surveys, analysis, reports, and all that, so if I want to do well in them I really have to put loads of effort in.

First things first, you have to get a handle on your academics. Your school assigns a lot of work. Okay, kick ass with your work. How do you do this? Make sure you abandon the typical high school mindset that it’s just a function of how many hours of effort you invest. Read the study tips and productivity archives of this blog. Man up (or woman up) and take control of your time. Start making schedules. Start things earlier. Replace inefficient study habits with efficient ones.

Once you have a handle on your courses, and you really feel like you’re engaging that material, and enjoy it, and are doing top-notch work, then remember the following: interesting things happen to interesting people.

This translates, for you, to take something you’re interested in, like writing or photography, and start asking what would be the coolest f’ing things I could do with this? Then talk to people who have. Try random stuff. Go out on a limb. Just be interesting and constantly seek cool new places to take your interests.

Good stuff — including, yes, success with college admissions — will follow.

If you click on the “About Study Hacks” tab above it has all my contact info. But now that you’ve asked, I’m happy to answer your question here.

The basic idea behind Tip #60 is that you should do some good just for the sake of doing good. Not for recognition. Now, if you’ve done a lot of volunteering then, of course, you can mention this in a relevant interview, as it’s a major part of your background. But for many students, who don’t really do anything along those lines, Tip #60 would say “go do something, just to be good, not for any other reason.”

I’m sorry this isn’t related to your entry. I just couldn’t find your contact info even after some digging (maybe I’m less tech-savvy than I thought). I just have a question about a tip in your How to Win in College. Tip #60 says I should volunteer but not talk about it, not even in interviews. I’m not a fan of showoffs either, but aren’t there points in an interview when a big volunteer experience would earn you lots of points? For example, I’m applying for summer internships in non-profit organizations, and I can’t think of a way to convince them I’m fit for the job without bringing up how much volunteering I’ve done and how it has shaped my thinking, etc. Some more elaboration on this would be great.

Before I wind up, let me reiterate the obvious: your book is amazing!

Thanks for chiming in. It’s great to hear other voices that have gone through this. It’s so true about the snobbery. I went to Dartmouth. That’s a pretty good school. But it’s not known as a science power-house. I’ve actually had (typically, non-American) researchers say to me: “what’s Dartmouth?” Not even on their radar.

Can a relaxed high school student get into Harvard (or the Ivy League/top schools)?

Don’t get me started! I’ve been researching this question since the summer. Short answer: yes.

Slightly longer answer: high school students who apply the radical simplicity manifesto, and really focus hard on at most one thing, and leave open time for random opportunities, end up begin really interesting. There’s nothing these top schools like more than truely interesting people.

Earlier this week I got an e-mail from a reader who has some connection to the admission decisions at a prestigious medical program. His observation: “I was suprised by how many of the [accepted] students reeked of radical simplicity.” I’m now working with him on a more detailed post about med school, but one of the basic observations is that, yes, you should expose yourself to the medical world. But this can be your main activity, or done over the summer, or done in a year between graduation and starting med school. There’s no reason why this necessitates an over-crowded schedule.

More soon…stay tuned…

Also,I went to a liberal arts college and am in grad school in engineering and learned that for those of us coming from small non-research schools, you’ve got to try to get a summer internship at a large name-recognized school. Unfortunately for us, name recognition matters to profs at big name schools.