10th Grade Guidance

What Is An Extracurricular Activity?

Extracurricular activities can be any activity you participate in outside of the classroom. They can be clubs and organizations, summer activities, volunteer projects, sports teams, and more. At extremely selective schools in particular, admissions officers like to see about 8-10 extracurricular activities over your high school years.

College admissions officers use your extracurriculars to evaluate your abilities and understand what you're capable of completing outside of the classroom.

Ask yourself a few key questions as you decide whether to keep pursuing the activity:

• What are the benefits of continued participation?
• Am I building key skills that will help me in life and that I'll want to share on my college applications?
• Why did I join this activity in the first place? Am I still as interested in the subject area as I was then?
• How many hours do I spend on this activity per week?
• Are those hours translating to enough enjoyment, skill-building, or other benefits?

This Might Mean You Need To Put In More Time Doing The Following:

Staying late after club meetings to help clean up and discuss upcoming projects with current leaders. Signing up for more responsibilities and demonstrating that you’re committed to the activity because you’re always willing to show up and do the work. Making friends with current leaders or other members so they recognize your passion for the activity and your potential for leadership.

Prioritize Your Favorite Extracurricular Activities

You’ve probably been a member of some of your extracurricular activities for a full year or more now, so you have a feel for how the activity works and whether you like it or not. Sophomore year is the best time to critically assess your extracurricular commitments and be selective about which to continue pursuing — if you wait until junior year, you may not have time to develop those key extracurriculars into activities of substance that you can discuss in your college applications.

If you really love a certain extracurricular, you should definitely stay involved! If you aren’t a huge fan of an activity, though, you have a decision to make. Is the activity worth your time?

What Is The PSAT?

The PSAT is the “Preliminary SAT,” also sometimes called the National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (NMSQT). Your school usually sets up a session for you and all of your interested classmates to take the PSAT twice, once in sophomore fall and once in junior fall.

The PSAT doesn’t have a direct impact on the admissions process, unlike the SAT and ACT. Taking the PSAT is an informal way for you to practice your standardized testing skills and gain an understanding of your relative performance on a test similar to the SAT, so you can begin composing your SAT/ACT study plan and forecasting your admissions chances at colleges of interest.

However, the PSAT in junior fall is somewhat important in that it is an opportunity to qualify for the National Merit Scholarship program. The National Merit system awards honors to students who have the highest PSAT scores in their locality, their state, and ultimately the country. The highest level of the competition awards monetary scholarships, but even the lower levels of the competition provide distinctions that can be important in the admissions process as signals of your academic ability.

When Should I Start Preparing For The SAT?

The students with the most successful SAT scores are those who start preparing as early as possible, usually in the latter half of sophomore year. After taking the PSAT in sophomore fall, you’ll probably have some idea of your projected performance on the SAT. If your score seems to be within your target range for admission at the schools you’re interested in, it’s still important to study for the SAT and maintain or, better, improve that score to maximize your chances.

If your score seems too low, you’ll want to work even harder to identify your strengths and weaknesses (are you a pro at English but struggle with geometry questions in the Math section?) and focus on those before you take the SAT for real.

In sophomore year, make a general plan for when you want to take the SAT for the first time (junior fall is a good goal) and then work back from the test date to plan how many full practice exams you want to take and how many hours per week you want to spend on practice problems. It’s a good idea to use the summer after sophomore year to do a lot of SAT studying because it’s harder to study for standardized tests during the school year when you’re juggling homework and extracurricular activities.

Learn more about improving your SAT score. >

What Should I Do During The Summer?

You have two main options for the summer: you can participate in an organized activity like a summer program, or you can craft your own path. Either option is equally valid in the admissions process, as long as you spend your time learning something (whether academic or life skills) and exploring your interests and passions.

Formal academic summer programs are often run by colleges and provide excellent opportunities to diversify your understanding of a subject that you’re interested in. There are also study abroad and leadership programs that provide great experiences to write about in your eventual college essays. If you’re interested in a formal summer program, make sure you stay on top of application deadlines, which usually fall somewhere between January and March.

If you’re more interested in crafting your own summer, there are a ton of ways to demonstrate valuable skills. You could get a part-time job, which shows admissions officers your ability to maintain a schedule and work hard (and also earn some money!). You could start a personal project or teach yourself a new skill You could explore internship or volunteer opportunities at local companies or non-profits. If you’re spending your summer doing something that interests you and that you’re genuinely excited about, you’re on the right track.