Expert Admissions hosted a webinar with two of our senior admissions counselors, Tova Meyer, a former Princeton admissions officer, and Jacob Hansen, a former Harvard admissions officer. We discussed how students can set themselves up for success during their high school years, including building a rigorous curriculum, making a testing plan, showing impact through extracurriculars, and more.
Planning Curriculum
Colleges differ in how they evaluate applicants overall, but one constant across all schools is that your high school transcript—both grades and course rigor—is the most important thing. Students should try to take the most challenging courses available across the five core subjects: English, math, science, history/social sciences, and foreign language. That does not mean every student needs to take every AP, IB, honors, or dual-enrollment class available. It does mean students should make thoughtful choices that show curiosity, effort, and a commitment to challenging themselves.
Planning ahead can make a big difference, especially in subjects like math, science, and foreign language, where courses build on one another. Work backwards from the most advanced classes your school offers to figure out which courses you should take earlier on.
Colleges also understand that every high school is different. Students are not penalized for courses their school does not offer but are expected to take advantage of the opportunities they have. A few small bumps are not the end of the world. What matters most is the bigger picture: challenge, engagement, and strong performance over time.
Making a Testing Plan
Colleges view the SAT and ACT equally, so students should choose the test that works better for them. Take diagnostic versions of both during your sophomore year, then focus on the one that is the better fit. You’ll want to make a testing plan early enough to allow time for preparation and retesting. Everyone’s timeline looks a little different, but many students take their first official test in late fall or winter of junior year, then test again later in junior year or early senior year.
Testing policies vary a lot from college to college. Some schools are test-blind, some require testing, and many remain test-optional. But test-optional does not mean that test scores don’t make a difference, so we encourage all students to prepare and test to set themselves up to score as high as they can. When applying to a test-optional school, look at the college’s middle 50% score range and only submit scores in the upper part of the range. .
AP and IB scores can also support a student’s academic profile. Strong testing can make a student more academically competitive in a college’s eyes, but scores alone do not determine admission. They are just one part of a much larger application.
Extracurriculars and Impact
Extracurricular activities help paint a fuller picture of your life beyond the classroom: how you spend your time, what you care about, and how you contribute to your current communities, and how you will contribute to your college community. Extracurriculars can include everything from clubs, sports, arts, and service to a job and family responsibilities, and there is no single “right” list of activities. Colleges care less about the specific experiences you have had and more about what those experiences sparked, what you learned, and what you did afterward.
A student who commits deeply to a few activities and grows in responsibility is often more compelling than a student with a long list of surface-level commitments. Colleges want to know not just what the activity was, but what the student actually did, why it mattered, and how they helped or changed something around them.
That said, impact does not have to be huge or flashy: you don’t need to start a nonprofit or win a national award to make a meaningful contribution. You might make an impact by mentoring younger students, helping with a family business, caring for siblings, organizing a club, or simply becoming someone others rely on. One helpful way to think about impact is this: in how many ways will you need to be replaced when you leave for college?
Summer Opportunities and Plans
Summers are a great chance for students to explore interests, build skills, take on responsibilities, and try things that may not fit into the regular school year. Summer plans do not need to be expensive, prestigious, or highly selective to be worthwhile. A local opportunity can be just as meaningful as a nationally well-known program if the student engages deeply. What matters is what you do with the experience and how it helps you grow.
The summers after 9th and 10th grade can be exploratory. Students might take a class, volunteer, shadow someone, get a job, or try something new. These experiences can help you figure out what you enjoy and what you may want to pursue more seriously.
By the summer after 11th grade, students should try to be more intentional and focus on action and impact. Rising seniors may benefit from activities that connect to and build on their academic interests, possible majors, community commitments, or long-term goals. These experiences will often form the basis for a student’s college application essays.
Essays and Holistic Review
Essays help colleges see the person behind the grades, scores, and activity list. Strong essays reveal how a student thinks, what they value, and how they respond to the world around them.
This is because colleges review applicants holistically, looking at the full picture. They consider academics, testing, activities, essays, recommendations, context, institutional priorities, and the student’s potential contribution to campus life. They are asking not only, “Can this student do the work?” but also, “Who will this student be in our community?”
In this context, the strongest applicant is not always the student with the highest GPA or the most impressive-sounding activity. A student with perfect grades and a prestigious summer program under their belt may not seem distinctive if their application does not show meaningful engagement, reflection, or impact. Students with less-than-perfect grades can still have strong and appealing profiles when they show leadership, commitment, responsibility, curiosity, and contribution. The key is building a college list that fits your academic profile and highlights your strengths.
Remember, a successful application is not just a list of achievements; it is a thoughtful portrait of a student who is prepared, engaged, and ready to contribute. Drawing and following a thoughtful roadmap of your classes, testing, and extracurriculars is a great way to get there.
For all the details on these topics and more, watch the webinar above.
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