I'm overwhelmed

Hi @Hxniebee,

Thank for asking your question. I think it's a good one because these days most high school students are overwhelmed with the stress and pressure put upon themselves to get into a top college or at least a prestigious college that they can feel good about.

First of all, let's take a step back and think about the most important things in your life regardless of who you are. In my opinion, without your health, both your physical and mental health and without great people in your life supporting and loving you, like your family and friends, you are not doing well regardless of how great a student you are on paper.

So if you are not doing well you can not possibly believe that attacking the college admissions checklist for gaining admissions to a Top 10 college will miraculously cure you of your anxiety, stress, and mental wellness. It will do the opposite okay? You will have a meltdown.

Second, let me reassure you that if and when you become a neurosurgeon, no one in your hospital, none of your peers or friends or love interests will ever give a damn about how old you were when you graduated from medical school. Trust me, all they will care about is if you are a good trustworthy person and if you are a capable surgeon. Your age will not matter. When you become a doctor, you are a doctor for life, until you are 6 feet underground in your casket. It's not like being a draft pick for the NFL or NBA okay? You might have a 4-year career or a 14-year career, but definitely not a 50 or 60-year career.

So on this note, I will tell you that when you start college is arbitrary. And where you go to college is arbitrary. It doesn't matter whether you are 18 or 19 or 20 when you start college. And it doesn't matter if you go to Duke, UNC, or NC State or start at a community college and transfer into a 4-year college. If you want to be a neurosurgeon, you will find a way to get there okay? And furthermore, Duke is not the endgame for your college education, medical school is. So it really doesn't matter if you study pre-med at Duke or the University of Illinois, a state college. What matters is that you get a high MCAT score in your 3rd year of college, have a high GPA when you apply to medical schools, and hopefully get into a Top 25 medical school that has a neurosurgery track.

One thing I learned from going to one of the best boarding schools in the US is a secret that most people do not know. I will share it with you because you are someone that might appreciate this. The Best boarding schools have been around for 250 years. They are really good and getting their students into Ivys and top elites like Duke and Georgetown. One tradition that is as old as boarding schools is parents hold their kids back a year. Seriously, the majority of my senior class was 19 years old at graduation. And 30% of my class got into Ivies, and another 30% got into Elite colleges like Duke. Wealthy, powerful, families have been holding their kids back intentionally for 250 years. Why because it makes them more competitive when they apply to the best schools in the country. They are more mature, they can handle more advanced course work, they are better athletes, and have already worked out a lot of their issues like time management, social awkwardness, speaking up, and using their voice in smaller group discussions. On the other hand, if you take a sampling of the smartest public school kids in America, they are all 1 year younger on average because they skipped a grade, so many of them are applying to the very same schools as top boarding school kids at age 16 or 17, not 19. So if a college admissions officer is looking at an applicant holistically without taking age into consideration, the private boarding school is going to be an easy choice. They have lived on their own for 2, 3, or 4 years, and they all have done some varsity sports that are attractive to elite colleges like crew, water polo, lacrosse, sailing, fencing, soccer, skiing, and field hockey. And they are all super self-confident and relaxed about where they fit in. You can't compare a 19-year-old soccer player to a 16-year-old one, the former has 3 years more time on the pitch.

I'm telling you this because you need to take an inventory of yourself and what's important to you. You might learn that it might be a good idea to take an extra year or a post-graduate year of high school to graduate. Sometimes you can't meet your match head-on and win. Sometimes you need to re-group, re-train, re-think, and then re-apply your knowledge. Then you might have a better chance at getting into the college you really want to be at.

Good luck.

You can be a neurosurgeon and not go to Duke. Duke only has a 7% acceptance rate.

Do the ECs that interest you.

Shoot your shot for Duke. But also know that you can be super successful and go to a different college. Good luck.