A lot of students are looking for a roadmap, a step-by-step plan that will get you into the college of your choice. But that’s like looking for instructions telling you exactly what to do to have a great marriage. There are lots of good practices and mistakes you can avoid that will improve your chances for success. But there’s no roadmap. No two couples who’ve been happily married for fifty years took exactly the same steps to get where they are, and no two students at a given college got in by doing exactly the same things.
A lot of the stress, confusion and frustration families feel surrounding college admissions comes from their search for the roadmap. From picking which high school to attend, to choosing classes, to selecting test prep tutors and pursuing activities and making decisions about what to do over the summer, they want to know the exact steps to take to get them to their desired destination.
If there were such a roadmap, somebody would have decoded and profited from it already. Read the colleges’ websites to see what they recommend. Talk with your high school counselor about the colleges that interest you and what you could do to make yourself a competitive applicant. That’s where you’ll find the good practices that will make sure you get in someplace that’s right for you and are ready to succeed once you get there.
But don’t ask, “What should I do to get into Stanford.” That’s a roadmap question, and nobody ever got into a dream school by following a map.