MahadtheMentor: Fall Survival Guide

🏅Overview
Writing this guide made me feel like Ned from Ned’s Declassified. Y’all remember that show,
right? As a matter of fact, can you email Nickelodeon and tell them they should reboot the show
with me as the star? As you can tell from the video you just watched, I’m a natural-born actor.

Enough chit-chat. Let’s break down what you nerds should be doing this fall to (hopefully) make
something of yourselves one day. Except you, Arjun, Sarah, John, and Shreya. Y’all are cooked.

👶Middle Schoolers: STOP SLACKING

Middle school is by far the most critical period of your academic career. Your decisions in 6th
grade will dictate whether you become a Harvard student…..or have to enroll at the institute
down the street my brother went to (ifykyk).

But seriously, if you’re reading this as a middle schooler, hop back on Fortnite. You got nothing
to worry about for now.

👧9th Graders: Ease Into It

Grades:
Yale Admissions claims that “the high school transcript is almost always the most important
document in a student’s application.” Simply put, your high school GPA matters. But I know
how easy it is to become obsessed with grades freshman year (check out the Khan Squared
podcast to hear about my obsession).

But please, before you beg your teacher for extra credit because of the 88 you got on a quiz,
relax. If there was ever a year to struggle or have a lower GPA, freshman year is the year.
Colleges get it; it is a big adjustment from middle school, and the learning curve is real. That’s
not to say if you get a C average, it’s no biggie; instead, colleges value an upward trend in
grades over the years.

But if it makes you feel better, the UC schools don’t consider your freshman-year grades (they
do consider your freshman-year classes, though).

Tests & Studying:

As a freshman, you may take the PSAT 8/9 exam, which you likely won’t care enough to study
for, and yeah, there’s not much benefit to it (this changes later in high school).

But for all your other high school tests, you may need to adjust your study methods from middle
school. Off the top of my head, some popular study techniques include:
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1. The Feynman Technique

2. Spaced Repetition
3. More Active Recall Techniques

Simply put, active recall is the best way to study. It is a study technique where you actively test
your memory by trying to retrieve information without looking at your notes or textbooks. This
method is effective as it strengthens memory retention and understanding by reinforcing neural
connections each time you recall the information. This includes studying with flashcards or using
the Blurting method.

Classes:
I get a bunch of DMs every day from 9th graders asking me to choose between two of their
classes. Yale claims that “it is hard to conceive of a situation in which the appearance (or
absence) of any particular class on a transcript would determine the applicant’s outcome. So,
hopefully, this will put your class-related anxieties at rest.

Take four years of your core subjects (Math, English, Science), but also choose your electives
based on what you’re genuinely interested in. Then, see if you can add rigor through an
AP/IB/dual enrollment distinction.

While you by no means need to take one of these higher-level courses as a freshman (especially
if your school doesn’t allow it), you’ll want to look to take a few next year if you’re going for the
Ivy Leagues. But as I’ve always said, you’re judged within your high school context, so if your
high school doesn’t offer AP classes, you won’t be penalized.

Finding Extracurriculars:
Freshman year is all about finding and exploring different extracurriculars. You likely don’t have
a defined academic interest yet, which is okay. Still, do some thinking about what you want
your high school experience to look like. Ideally, by the end of the year, you should know what
clubs you’d like to move forward with and what you’re not interested in continuing.

Building up your extracurriculars is important for the application process — and if you want a
leadership position in a club as an upperclassman — you have to get involved in them now.

For instance, if you’re currently juggling debate, DECA, FBLA, student government, cross
country, tennis, and Model UN, you may be spreading yourself too thin. Think about the
activities you care the most about and line up with your academic interests — those are the ones
you’ll want to continue all of high school.

If you’re really into business and entrepreneurship, you’ll likely want to invest more time into
FBLA and DECA while pulling back from, let’s say Model UN if you’re not that into politics.
Time is finite — so make sure you distribute it wisely.
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But all the while, keep asking yourself where your academic (and general) interests lie. Because
soon, you’re going to want to venture outside of school for your extracurriculars.

👦10th Graders: Double-Down

Grades:
Let’s quote Yale again. It is “important that we see a high level (or an improving degree) of rigor
and success throughout your high school years.” In other words, they want to see higher grades
in harder courses over the years. Simple, right?

Tests:
You’ll likely take the PSAT 10 and a few AP/IB exams this year. Now, while the PSAT isn’t that
important in 10th grade, it is important in 11th grade, so you might as well do your best on it to
see your baseline. Don’t study too much, but also don’t speedrun the exam.

If this is your first year of AP exams, I urge you to look up resources online to help you study
and reinforce prior learning. For instance, check out Heimler’s History for all your APUSH,
Euro, World History, and Gov needs. If you do well on AP exams this year, you can earn an
honor to put on your college apps and earn potential college credit that’ll save you time and
money.

Classes:
Now that we’re done with the foundational 9th grade classes, it’s time to up our rigor a bit.

If your ultimate goal is the top colleges, then you’re hopefully enrolled in a few AP, IB, or dual
enrollment courses. Colleges value course rigor, and as Yale said above, they want to see an
“improving degree” or rigor throughout high school.

But I don't know whether taking AP, IB, or dual enrollment is better. I don’t even think an
admissions officer will give you an objective answer. Each has its pros and cons, but I always
refer to AP since they have a standardized curriculum, they’re the most popular, and they can
provide college credit.

Building Extracurriculars:
I want you to sit down right now and list all of the activities you participated in 9th grade and
rank them according to how much you enjoyed them. Freshman year is a perfect time to explore
a bunch of different school clubs, but sophomore year is when you want to start being more
intentional about what you spend your time on.

Create a plan for the activities you will pursue for the rest of high school and what you want to
achieve. Once you know what you want to pursue and what titles you have your sights on, create
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an action plan for achieving this. Still all about business and entrepreneurship? You’ll want to
become president of either DECA/FBLA, win some competitions, and maybe cold email
businesses near you for an internship.

Sophomore year is also the year you want to begin looking outside school for activities (such as
the internship I mentioned above). I believe that every strong applicant for top schools will have
an activity or two they pursued independently that 1) reflects a strong interest of theirs and 2)
made a significant impact.

While becoming president of a few clubs and cross country captain will help you, colleges also
strongly value the student who seeks out and builds a (passion) project on their own. And with
your own activity, you have full ownership and much more flexibility to make an impact.

So, think about where your interests lie, brainstorm some independent activities you can pursue,
and plan out the steps to build each up.

👨11th Graders: Pedal to the Metal

Grades:
Colleges want to continue to see an upward trend in grades, so not much else to say here but to
keep them up.

Additionally, people often recommend you get your recommendation letters from junior-year
teachers, since they’re the ones who’ve spent a full year with the latest version of you and are
likely teaching your hardest classes. As such, you’ll want to get good grades in these classes.

Tests:
Okay, so you’ll take even more AP exams this year. No worries, you know how to study for
these exams by now.

The real tests I want to talk about are your PSAT and SAT. Now, while the latter is more
important, the former could earn you a full-four-year ride at a university. That’s right; your
junior year PSAT score can save you hundreds of thousands of dollars. Alongside that, a high
PSAT score will help you become a National Merit Finalist—another award for your college
app, and it comes with some scholarship money on its own.

As for the SAT, I strongly recommend you take it in March of your junior year, which means
you may want to start prepping later this year. Getting this test out of the way before junior
summer and senior year frees up a lot of time for you to focus on different parts of your
application. Use Khan Academy resources, and check out our SAT bootcamp for help with these
exams.

Classes:
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As was the same for 10th graders, if your ultimate goal is the top colleges, then hopefully, you’re
enrolled in a few AP, IB, or dual enrollment courses. It’s no secret that colleges value course
rigor, and your class selection is one of the best ways to prove to colleges you’re prepared for
their academics.

But it may also be worthwhile to check to see if your schedule aligns with your dream colleges'
requirements and recommendations. For instance, Harvard recommends four years of a foreign
language, so if you were debating whether to drop Spanish or not, maybe hold onto it. That said,
I dropped Spanish in lieu of an extra AP, and it worked out for me. To bring it back to what Yale
said, the absence of a singular class won’t make or break an application, so all I urge you to do is
ensure you have the core requirements alongside rigor.

And remember, you’ll want to keep course difficulty up for senior year as well, so plan to take a
similar amount (or more) APs next year.

Deepening Extracurriculars:
This will be your most important year of extracurriculars. By now, you’ve been fully involved in
activities for two years, so you should know what you’re interested in. That doesn’t mean you
can’t join a club or start an activity in 11th grade — you 100% can and should if you find
something you’re genuinely interested in.

My point is that besides just being part of a bunch of activities, you need to continue making
real impact in them. Impact means taking the initiative and getting to work. Angling for student
body president? Work with the current administration to solve issues in your school and get
heavily involved in all school events. You’re going to have to give a speech to win the
presidency, and having evidence of your impact will help you win.

But this isn’t limited to school clubs and leadership positions. As I’ve said before, look outside
of school. I did psychology research at a local university and an internship at a therapy clinic.
Hopefully, you have a few independent activities you’ve started (ex. Content creation, research,
a nonprofit, etc.); this is when you want to take them to the next level.

You’re not going to have time to spread yourself across 10 clubs; rather, pick the few school
clubs you want to gain a leadership role in alongside your independent activities and start going
ham at those. Hopefully, you already have a few from 10th grade you can continue.

Summer Activities:
I strongly recommend you spend your junior summer either 1) doing a summer program, 2)
doing an internship or job shadowing, 3) working a part-time job, or 4) working on your passion
project. Why? Because this is a great way to give your application one last boost.
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Summer programs such as USC Bovard, LEDA scholars, MITES, SSP, and RSI are highly
selective and will bolster your college applications. There are also plenty of other summer
programs for juniors, but these were the big ones off the top of my head. Most application
deadlines are at the end/start of next year, but starting early is good.

While I did not do one of these established summer programs, I got a therapy clinic internship by
cold emailing a local office. So if you want to go down this route, but don’t know where to start,
ask your parents if they know of anyone working in the field you’re interested in, and network
through LinkedIn to see if any high school alumni could help you out.

👵12th Graders: Thoughts & Prayers

Grades:
Your fall grades matter. And while it’s too late to bring up a 3.7 to a 3.9, hey, if you can improve
your GPA then go for it. More importantly, you will have to send your senior year grades to
colleges using what is known as a mid-year report. So if your grades take a big tumble senior
fall, this will hurt your chances of getting in.

But this doesn’t mean you can stop trying senior spring either, because you may get rescinded if
your grades drop too much.

So yeah, keep getting those As.

Picking Classes:
Now I know you have no more classes left to pick. All I want to ensure is that you’re not taking
too easy of a course load if you want to go to an Ivy League. Why, well, let’s hear from Yale
themselves.
“Senior year is not the time to take a light course load. Do not catch “senioritis!” The
admissions committee will check an applicant’s senior year program and performance
before offering admission.”

They also claim that “it is very important that we see a high level (or an improving degree) of
rigor and success throughout your high school years. This includes your senior year.” So if you
took 4 APs last year but dropped to 1 to focus on college apps, I suggest contacting your
counselor to see if you can add some rigor to your schedule.

Tests:
Hopefully, you have an SAT/ACT score you’re happy with if you’re applying to schools with
test requirements. If not, register for the ACT or SAT now. Your October test scores can still be
sent to your EA/ED college. Some schools may accept a November, but you’d have to check
each of their policies individually.
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Beyond that, report all scores of 4s and 5s on past AP exams in the Common App, and look for
colleges where your AP scores earn you credit.

Extracurriculars:
Aim to secure leadership roles in activities you’ve done for a while (i.e., captain and president).
And while it is too late to start a brand new club or create a new passion project, continue being
involved and making an impact in your top activities. Remember, you only have 150 characters
to describe your involvement, and if you make enough impact now, you can significantly
enhance your activity descriptions.

Common App:
Now, I can make entire guides on how to fill out specific parts of the Common App (activities
guide here), but that’s too much for today’s. All I will say is that you should have the following
done soon:
1. Create a Common App account
2. Create a college list
3. Ask two teachers for rec letters with a brag sheet
4. Create a list of all your activities
5. Schedule a check-in meeting with your counselor
6. Begin looking for scholarships
7. Begin writing your college essays

College List:
Your initial college list should comprise around 8-12 schools, consisting of some safeties (2-3
schools), some matches (3-5 schools), and reaches (3-5 schools). But if you want to shotgun all
the Ivies, that’s your prerogative, and I wouldn’t blame you.

For quick context, safeties are schools where your academics (SAT & GPA) fall in the 75th
percentile or above; matches are where your academics fall within the 25th-75th percentile;
reaches are where your academics fall below the 25th percentile. But no, the T20 schools are
reaches for everyone (except the International Math Olympiad winners.)

I recommend creating your college list based on

1. Cost
a. Can I afford this/do they offer merit-based scholarships/is the cost worth it?
2. Academics
a. Do they have programs I like/what’s their curriculum like/how is their faculty?
3. Location
a. Do I want to go to a city/do I like the weather/what is there to do nearby?
4. Vibes
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a. Is Greek Life big/how’s the party scene/do the CS students shower?

Ideally, each college on your list has a good combination of these factors. And if one really
sticks out to you, let’s apply there early.

College Essays:
Again, I can write several guides on college essays (should I?), so today I’m just going to tell
you that….you need to start writing them. Finish a draft of your Common App essay by the end
of September at the latest, and then spend October revising and working on your supplemental
essays for your EA/ED school.

I recommend keeping a running spreadsheet of all your colleges along with their prompts so you
can track progress. This way, you can easily see if you can reuse essays across schools that ask
similar prompts (never reuse a Why Us essay).

And while I won’t get deep into college essays right now, I will leave you with three pieces of
my best essay-writing advice:
1. Write your first draft without caring about word count. Just keep writing. Explore paths
you didn’t know your essay would take, and get all your ideas on paper to work off of.
2. Be authentic; don’t try to impress the admissions officer by exaggerating the impact of an
event or realization.
3. Start with an engaging hook.
4. Bonus: submit your essays for review here! Our team of Ivy League consultants will
provide detailed feedback and edits in as little as 24 hours.

FAFSA:
Ahhh, the FAFSA. If you don’t know, the FAFSA is “a free application that helps determine
eligibility for federal financial aid for college.” Simply, you need to fill it out to determine how
much financial aid you're eligible to receive, including grants, scholarships, work-study funds,
and loans. But, it underwent major changes last year—I detailed some in a video here.

The FAFSA usually opens on October 1st, but this year it is releasing on December 1st. Check
out this article from the FAFSA detailing what you should be doing now for financial aid and
calculating the costs of specific colleges.

Finding Scholarships:
The FAFSA is how you’ll get most of your aid, but you should still 1000% be looking for
scholarships. Here’s a quick spreadsheet I made regarding some of the bigger merit-based
scholarships available and some other scholarship databases here and here.
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I also advise you to look for state-specific scholarships. For instance, Florida's Bright Futures
Scholarship Program offers full or partial tuition coverage to Florida residents who meet
academic criteria and choose to attend an eligible in-state college.

But beyond that, think small and local. My high school had dozens of small scholarships that
ranged from $500-$2,000 provided by local residents. Just email your guidance counselor and
request a list of all local scholarships you could apply for. AND there are thousands of small
scholarships available online that you could get for your interests, religion, ethnicity, or even
height. Just Google a characteristic of yourself + the word “scholarship.” Happy hunting!
Enjoy the Moment:
Now, while all this talk about essays and scholarships is terribly exciting, I want to pivot a bit.
This fall is going to be stressful. It’ll be full of late nights, emotional turmoil, and much of the
comparison game.

But this is also the year where you’re in the last year of your sport, can finally drive (lol if you
can’t), and have limited time left with your friends and family. Enjoy the moment.

Take a break and go out for a Crumbl cookie, loiter in the McDonald’s parking lot, and buy in to
your final school events. I never understood the logic that buying into school spirit and going to
events was “lame.” It seems lamer not to, but I digress. My point is: you’re going to have a lot of
shit to do, so you may as well have some fun doing it.

📋Summary
If there’s one thing I want students from each grade to take away from this guide, it’s this:
- 9th Graders: This ain’t middle school anymore; you have classes, clubs, and probably a
sport, so you must find an after-school routine that works for you. Learning to balance
school work alongside your activities is crucial to get into the top colleges. You can’t
spend all your time studying and none on extracurriculars, and vice versa. Read Atomic
Habits, find a study system, and you’ll set yourself up nicely for the rest of high school.

- 10th Graders: Keep exploring your school's different activities, but what I really want
you to do is sit down and consider your real interests. This is the year you want to
dedicate more time to your top 3-4 activities. And while I dislike the word “passion,”
having unique activities related to a specific interest (passion ig?) will help set you apart.
Starting independent activities early in high school can open your eyes to what you want
to study in college and strengthen your application.
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- 11th Graders: Ahhh, yes, the so-called “hardest year of high school.” And honestly, I see
it. Tougher classes, more demanding activities, and the SAT is creeping up. But set your
priorities according to how your current application looks. Lacking in activities, you still
have time to start an independent activity or to join a club or two. Low grades? Maybe
swap an AP for an Honors, or see if you can boost your GPA with a dual-enrollment
class. And while it’s early, think about next summer. I did an internship in junior
summer, which became one of my top activities. If you have a specific academic interest,
start networking and see whether an internship or job shadowing is possible. But also
look into summer programs like LEDA scholars, USC Bovard, SSP. Applications may
not be open, but there’s no harm in starting to think about it.

- 12th Graders: Hmmm, what can I even say here? More than anything, you should be
dedicating your free time to your college essays. Your grades are still important, and you
should continue your activities, but it’s difficult to start something new now or drastically
raise your GPA. That leaves us with the piece of the application process you have full
control over: your words. Chip away at it daily, keep a running doc to brainstorm your
ideas, and you’ll thank yourself come the EA deadline. And yeah, hit up Taco Bell on a
random Tuesday with your boy from time to time.

Wow, I talk a lot. I hope y’all don’t mind. And as always, if you liked this guide and want more,
DM me a😎!

Also, if you need help with your college essays, submit them for review here! Our team of
Ivy League consultants will provide detailed feedback and edits in as little as 24 hours.