Students interested in history are common, but students who want to major in history in college are of a rarer breed these days. In an era of STEM and questions around the immediate financial value of an undergraduate degree outside of the STEM fields, many students who would have once passionately pursued a major in history are now choosing to make history a minor. However, history is an amazing major, or second major, especially for students interested in pursuing a role in academia or teaching.
Whether history would be a sole major, or the second half of a double major, it’s important to be making moves as a sophomore to make sure your application stand out. Getting exceptional grades and high scores is the baseline for consideration by a top-tier college or university, but obviously you want to go beyond that. If you are a sophomore reading this post, you are driven and passionate. You are committed to doing the work necessary to stand out, and you’re willing to make big moves as long as they made a real difference when it comes to outcomes.
We work with our sophomores who are passionate about history to develop extracurricular strategies that pay off. Through a balance of leadership, scholarship, and service, students passionate about history can ensure that their application stands out. Below, we’ll show you how to pull this off.
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If you are a sophomore interested in pursuing a major in history in college, there are some things you need to start doing today to lay the groundwork for an exceptional application come senior year. You may already be doing some of these things, or there may be a few you haven’t ventured into yet. The secret isn’t to do everything on the list, but to pick what works best for you given your schedule, skills, and what opportunities are accessible. Now, let’s dig into the different types of activities and what would be the best way to approach making them make an impact for your applications.
CLUBS & TEAMS
We encourage our sophomores interested in history to join the Model UN team, Quiz Bowl, or a History Club at their school — immediately. Seriously, immediately, and even better if you want to do two of the three. If you are already in one or more of these clubs, even better. But if none of these clubs exist at your school, you need to pick one to try to start. Typically, Quiz Bowl or a History Club are much easier to start than a Model UN team, and Quiz Bowl may be the easiest to recruit students to if you are nervous about that. First, though, you would need to find a faculty advisor and speak with your administration. If this sounds overwhelming, take it one step at a time.
Ultimately, whether you are starting a club or joining one, the purpose is leadership along with successes that you can point towards as evidence of your leadership, tenacity, and commitment. These will look different depending on the group. For Model UN, successes are awards and strong showings. With Quiz Bowl, it’s wins. With history club, it may be a report on school history for an alumni paper or newsletter. All of these are useful, and, again, if you can do two of the three that is even better.
SERVICE
It’s not new information (hopefully) that giving back to your community matters. It’s good for you, it’s good for your community, and it’s good for your college applications. What we want to do here is to put a history spin on how you are engaging in service.
It is very likely that your town, city, or neighborhood has a historical society or club. They may not have a website, so you need to spend time searching online but also asking around. Ask teachers or administrators, and inquire at your local library. Pretty quickly, you’ll find a community of passionate people who may not share your precise interested but are most definitely history-minded. Getting in with group is both fun and it serves a function. You can volunteer at a local historic site, read history-minded books to kids at the local library, or lead a clean-up around town landmarks — or, come up with your own thing. What matters isn’t precisely what you are doing, but that you throw yourself into it wholeheartedly. This will create opportunities in the moment, and stories for essays and supplements.
RESEARCH
We work with our history-minded students to pursue independent research. Sometimes it is with the guidance of a program like Lumiere that provides hands-on support for students from ideation to execution, and other times it’s totally independent research with minimal guidance or guard rails. Most students benefit from, at minimum, a guiding hand from someone who can help them understand what more advanced academic research looks like.
There’s a real reason behind this. While it’s fun to research independently just for fun, or even to write a ‘book’ that you can publish online, neither of these accomplishes much of anything for your college applications. Self-published work is, and please hear us here, not impressive to college admissions officers. Being published by a journal, magazine, or something as prestigious as The Concord Review.
Some of our students also have the opportunity to work as a research assistant under college professors. This type of arrangement takes time to put together, and you need to have a resume of work to point towards, so starting independent work as a sophomore can set you up for these types of opportunities as a junior or senior.
SUMMER PROGRAMS
As a high school sophomore, you’re probably hearing a lot about different summer programs connected to prestigious universities. Maybe a friend did one last summer, or you might be served an onslaught of advertisements on social media. Simply seeing the ad or promo videos the most doesn’t mean that a particular program is right for you.
Now, it’s very important that you fully internalize that doing a program at or affiliated with a dream school does not raise your chances of getting in. Instead of picking a program based on wanting added admissions attention, you need to consider programs solely through the lens of your passions and interests and what type of opportunity will enable you to dive deeper.
Ultimately, doing summer programs is not mandatory at all. They will not necessarily help you get into college, and some programs are functionally expensive academic summer camps. Again, that can be a great time — but it’s not necessarily a great use of your time if you want to make strategic moves to strengthen your applications. If you are going to do a summer program, it should be because it aligns closely with the areas of history you are most drawn toward. We work with our students to either identify the best summer program(s) for them, or determine if their energy and time are best spent elsewhere.
As a sophomore, it can feel like college is hundreds of miles away. The truth is that it comes up quickly, though, and preparing in advance lays the groundwork for the best outcomes once you start writing applications. As a student interested in history, differentiating yourself from other humanities majors is crucial, and making big moves with your activities are a great way to do that.
We help our students create personalized action plans that result in exceptional admissions outcomes. Learn more.