Rising Sophomore in High School - I am curious about steps I should take

Hello Everyone,


I am a rising Sophomore in High School and recently learned of Private Equity as a career path. I currently have a 4.1 weighted and a 1370 PSAT (~1500 on the real SAT). I am curious about what I should do from now until I apply to college (in terms of ECs that may help with admission to a good school) and which schools are good for admittance to a PE firm. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thank you!

 

https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/applying_sideways/

Firstly, expect your intended major / career plans to change frequently as you progress through high school and even undergrad. You pretty much have no frame of reference for what PE will be like until very far down the line, so don’t pigeonhole yourself.

Secondly, there is no set formula for the right set of activities that will get you into a target school. It you attempt to follow one, all you are doing is making yourself indistinguishable from every other applicant. For activities, it’s more about the values they communicate about you.

On that front, I think passion, commitment, leadership, excellence, responsibility, and community involvement are all good things to demonstrate with your activities. As for which schools are targets for PE, try using the WSO search function. Let me know if you have any questions; when I was your age, I was the same way.

 
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Ride your bike to the convenience store, cover up hickeys, and jerk off like we all did when we were 15.

 
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Ignore the above comments; college admissions have gotten exponentially more competitive since the older generation on this site last applied, and it's great that you're asking this question now.

Copying and pasting an older comment I wrote about college admissions: If your goal is to get into a top private target school, avoid preprofessional extracurriculars unless it's something social justice/public interest law-related. You should be doing activities like research, academic olympiads, sports, music, art, drama, and the like. Top schools want interesting students who will enrich the campus's intellectual culture; they want artists, mathematicians, researchers, musicians, athletes, and just interesting students in general who bring new, colorful perspectives to age-old problems. Why would admissions officers, who are usually humanities majors, feel compelled to admit someone whose application screams investment banking hardo? Pick your niche, focus on getting accepted first, and once you're in, declare whatever preprofessional major you want.

Given that you still have your sophomore and junior years ahead of you, and you're already concerned about college apps, you're in a very good spot. But to be clear: put finance out of mind until you've been admitted to a top university. Use this valuable time now to explore the plethora of intellectual opportunities around you--science, math, music, art, humanities, journalism, media, etc.--and focus on impact in the extracurriculars you enjoy the most. Join some clubs; go volunteer; try out academic olympiads (as they will without a doubt help your future, regardless of what you go into); pick up a sport. These achievements, and the lessons you gain from them, can often give you valuable anecdotes and glimpses into your personality, intellectual vitality, and humanity as you showcase yourself to colleges through your essays, and ultimately carry your acceptance into a top university.

Also, make sure you keep up your grades. Especially if you're not an URM/legacy/recruited athlete, if you don't have a 4.0/36/1580, you have little hope of being admitted to a top university today.

 

Just to be safe, OP should mark down "Hispanic" on his application. This holds true even if he isn't Hispanic.

 

You are doing God’s work for these HS prospects. Will tell my kids to follow this exact advice. Wish I would’ve known abt this.

 

I think you're putting too much emphasis on the stats portion of applying. Yea a 1400/32/3.7 won't do, but a school won't deny you with a 1530/35/3.9. Once you're at that point, your letters, essays, and extra currics are what's gonna get you in.

 

Nah, the stats are a tie breaker in a system where there are thousands of ties a year. Ofc it won’t kill you if ur imperfect, but it helps to be perfect (this comes from someone who got a 34 and lucked out ending up at a t5)

 

Get off Wall Street Oasis and go to r/applyingtocollege. Not a joke, that subreddit will be far more helpful in getting info on admissions than here, considering many of us are years away from when we applied to college.

WSO is full of anxious, paranoid undergrads, while A2C is full of anxious, paranoid high schoolers, but the few posts from admissions officers and admissions consultants are worth it there. Also remember to keep perspective and recognize that you don't need to go to Harvard to get into a good bank or PE shop.

 

Like one of the commenters said check out A2C on Reddit. It will give you a lot of good info. I was on it from my junior year of high school(I'm now a rising sophomore in college). Don't get sucked into a rabbit hole though ; it can be addicting and very depressing. You'll see people and wonder how some people have done so much. That sub somewhat exaggerates what you have to do to get in but it does give a rough idea on the current admission landscape. In terms of ECs its hard to say based on your interest but science fairs/competitions(INTEL, Regeneron if you're into any of that), science olympiad, Debate tournaments, research, MUN, Campaigns and non-profits. Look for programs for high school students NY Times, Google, Cisco have some. Do some niche things like my friend competed in a national stock competition. There are things like National Econ challenge and some Adam smith thing. For stats stay 1520+, 3.85 Unweighted+, take a bunch of APs) Those are common threads among people who go to T25s. As for which college any thing which kinda has an ivyish label to it will be good(just a rough list). Ivy League(All 8), public ivy(UNC, UVA, UMich, Berkeley, UCLA, UT Austin), midwestern Ivy(Notre Dame, UChicago, Northwestern, WashU), southern Ivy(Duke, Vanderbilt, Emory, Georgetown(didn't know which region to fit this in but amazing school)), west coast( Stanford, USC), Little Ivies(Middlebury, Amherst, Williams).

 

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