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Getting Into College While Enjoying High School

·1734 words·9 mins
Daniel Municio
Author
Daniel Municio
Be the best version of yourself
Table of Contents

Preamble:
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Everybody who gets into a college comes from a different path and different life, and there is no one method to guarantee entree into college. The honest truth is most students at Berkeley could’ve just as easily been rejected. If I applied under 10 different names, I definitely would not have gotten in 10 times. But this strategy will set you up best to succeed at any college you end up at, while avoiding wasting your time on useless “Extracurriculars” or classes.

Community College!
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Why you should do it:
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  • Through Dual Enrollment, you can sign up for cc classes during the school year
  • You can use assist.com to confirm whether or not your class will transfer over to your desired college.
  • You can complete your GE/IGETC entirely before starting college
    • Allows you to focus on the important classes in college and save money!
    • Most colleges don’t accept AP classes for breadth requirements
  • Admissions Officers value cc classes more than AP Classes
    • Community College transfers are more likely to succeed in college than high school students
  • Most high schoolers in California can take the classes entirely for free!
  • The classes only last a semester vs year-long AP Classes
  • Most Community Colleges offer fully online classes
  • While most high schools like to limit how many credits you can add from outside sources, CC credits will still always be on your college transcript

Which classes to take:
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Preface: this section will be geared more towards engineering majors.

  • For reference, I applied to the majority of schools as an Applied Math major.

There are 2 types of classes you should take at community college…

Interesting / Related to your Major Classes:
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These classes can be whatever is interesting to you, but the most fundamental classes for any engineering major are:

  • Calculus 1/2/3 (Up to multivariable)
    • Las Positas offers a year-long multi-variable class geared towards high schoolers taught by David Powers which I highly reccomend
  • Linear Algebra
  • Differential Equations
  • Physics 1/2/3 (Kinematics/Mechanics is most important)
  • Computer Science
  • Circuits / Electrical Engineering
  • CAD
  • Any class you find interesting!
    • I spent 2 semesters trying to sign up for welding

General Education Classes:
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These classes should be the easiest possible classes you can find that fulfill IGETC / General Education for whichever college you are looking into.

  • Search Rate My Professor for the easiest classes!
    • Choose online classes only
  • You probably shouldn’t spend more than ~4 hours a week on these classes.
  • These classes greatly vary, but here are some fun ones I took at Diablo Valley College and Chabot College
    • Transpersonal Psychology - Ray Faulkenberry
    • Government -
    • Ethics -
    • Music Appreciation -
    • Jazz History -

The Goal:
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The ultimate goal is to maximize time on things that are important to you, while minimizing time spent taking GE’s

  • You should be balancing roughly 1-2 easy GE classes and one STEM class a semester for best results.
  • This obviously varies from person to person, but I found myself struggling to balance 2 GE’s and 2 STEM classes on top of High School and running.

How Do I Sign-Up?
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This is where most people hit a road block and give up, because the process is annoyingly difficult. Here’s roughly what you have to do:

  • Enroll in the colleges dual enrollment program
    • Usually requires approval from your counselor or principal
    • Must be done every semester
    • Start this early!
  • Get direct approval (Through Another Form) for each class you wish to register for
    • Get this done ASAP! Classes fill up quick!
    • Also requires approval from counselor
    • Sometimes you need to get your AP scores to fulfill pre-reqs
  • Bug your counsleor!
    • Ask them for help, email them reminders to fill out your forms, etc
    • The biggest challenge was getting into classes before they filled up, so start early!
    • There’s usually more than one form you have to fill out, so make sure you ask for the full proccess.
  • Enroll at multiple colleges!
    • I have 4 different college transcripts

While I hope this has been a fairly comprehensive guide to Community College classes, feel free to email me if you have any questions!

Extra-Curriculars
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The 3 key rules:

The Golden Rule: Don’t do anything you’re not interested in!
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  • Do not waste your time doing pointless clubs that you think will make you like a better person.
    • Don’t do NHS / CSF / Key Club UNLESS you genuinely want to help out and would do it even if you couldn’t tell anybody you did it.
    • It really won’t make a difference in your application
    • I never did any, but watched many friends waste their time

Again, there’s no set club you should do, as they vary so much from school to school, but any form of project club (Robotics, RC-racing, Drones) is usually very fun and productive at building your engineering skill set (assuming you actaully put in the time and effort).

Rule 2: You get out what you put in!
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  • Stick to the golden rule, and this shouldn’t be an issue.
  • Stick to 1-2 activities that you will actually put your heart into
    • Admissions Officers can tell if you cared about your EC’s based on how you talk about them.

Rule 3: Your hobbies only have to make sense to you!
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  • I spent the majority of my time and focus in high school running.
  • Running did not get me recruited to a single college (Footnote: UCSC recruited me but couldn’t get me into the school)
    • I would still do it all over again the exact same way
  • 2 of my UC essays were about running!
  • While it did not necessarily make me a better engineer, it instilled many habits and life lessons in me that have been invaluable
  • I met almost all of my best friends while running.
  • The smartest person ever, Reid Dye also ran in high school!

TLDR: Do what makes you happy, and you will probably end up doing it well.

Projects
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  • Doing independent engineering projects is a GREAT way to expand your skills, enjoy yourself, and show genuine interest.\
  • Honestly infinitely more important than school in the real world
    • Will eventually help you get a job
  • You don’t have to start original!
    • There’s millions of open source projects you can start with to get your hands dirty
      • I will be posting more and more I’ve done as I get more time :)
    • Get good at googling!
      • Being able to google and find information and solutions is a real skill that seperates mediocre engineers from great engineers
      • The best advice I’ve ever gotten is always just to google my question
  • Again, you should do what you want to do, but here’s some suggestions
    • Line Following Robot
    • Autonomous or FPV Drone
    • Anything with Arduino (It’s a lot easier than it might seem I promise)
    • Smart Home Projects
    • Program to buy shoes the second they’re released on Nike
    • Program to spam Google Forms
    • Making Voice Activated ________
    • Robotic Arm!
  • If you think these are too hard, I promise you can do them, you just need to google around and find somebody else who already did it and posted a guide!

Writing College Essays
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Golden Rule #2: Don’t waste your money on essay writers
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  • If you REALLY feel the need to have your essay looked over by a professional, your local community college’s counseling office has service where they will read, review, and critique your college essays FOR FREE!
  • Write YOUR OWN Essay. Don’t write the essay you think they want you to write
    • It’s better to be rejected as yourself than be accepted as somebody else.
    • Your own unique voice is 100x more valuable than you think it is
      • AO’s want to hear YOUR voice BECAUSE its unqiue
      • Sounding smart and refined is SO old
  • Trauma essays are hard to write, because usually you’re not far enough removed from it
    • Write it anyways if you want too
  • Don’t write about your sports injury
    • Write it anyways if you want too (but make it unique somehow please)
    • I wrote about my performance anxiety with racing, and how it made me realize how lucky I am to worry about running around a silly little oval
  • Read The Anthropocene Reviewed
    • I tried to mimic John Green’s writing style
  • Find essays you like, and pick apart WHY you like them, and try to replicate bits and pieces in your own writing
  • Don’t over-edit your essays!
    • The original is probably the closest to your organic self
  • Everybody (Including Me) looks back at their essays as pretty bad, it’s part of life

My Stats:
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While I think this section is highly irrelevant, I know most people want to know anyways so here they are…

Note: GPA is after 11th grade, I never checked my senior year grades. Also doesn’t count my CC classes

  • GPA (Weighted): 4.06
  • Cumulative GPA: 3.77
  • Weighteed 10-12 A-G GPA: 4.04
  • 8 Dual-Enrollment Classes
    • Elementary Statistics/Probability - A (Junior -> Senior Summer)
    • Intro Programming - B (Senior Fall)
    • Adv Programming - A (Senior Spring)
    • Multi-Variable Calculus - A (Senior Fall & Sprint)
    • Transpersonal Psychology - A (Senior Spring)
    • Music Appreciation - A (Summer after Senior Year but put as Planned on Apps)
    • Jazz History - A (Summer after Senior Year but put as Planned on Apps)
    • Objected Oriented Programming - B+ (Summer after Senior Year but put as Planned on Apps)
  • AP’s:
    • AP Calculus AB - 5
    • AP Calculus BC - 5
    • AP Macro - 5
    • AP Micro - 5
    • Physics C: Mechanics - 5
    • AP Spanish - 5
  • Essays
  • Schools:
    • UC Davis: Waitlisted -> Accepted
    • UC Irvine: Accepted
    • UC Santa Barbara: Rejected
    • UC Los Angeles: Rejected
    • UC Berkeley: Accepted
    • UC San Diego: Waitlisted -> Accepted
    • Cal Poly SLO: Waitlisted -> Accepted
    • UC Santa Cruz: Accepted
    • UNC Chapel Hill: Accepted
    • Purdue: Accepted
    • Virginia Tech: Accepted
    • Stanford: Rejected
  • I do regret not applying to a few more schools, but I was able to spend a lot of time on the schools I did apply too.
  • As you can see, I got a rather late start to Community College, and didn’t do any independent projects.
    • A student who starts even in their junior year, can easily get into the most prestigious of colleges, if they go through this guide
  • I also did 2 music classes from Sophomore -> Senior Year, so it’s safe to say there was very little rigor in my high school schedule.