History is one of those majors that nearly every university or college offers, and that can be pursued successfully at nearly any of them. What differentiates one program from another is truly the overall caliber of the school and the subject area specialties of the faculty. But once you have your two or three top-choice schools that have strong programs in your precise areas of deepest interest, how do you get in?
Of course, there are the grades and scores. To get into a top-tier school, you need to have exceptional grades, and you need to have stellar test scores. Then there are the extracurriculars. You need to be taking whatever history electives you have access to, especially in your area of deepest interest if available. Do not drop a subject to make room for these electives, though. Many of the best colleges in the country, including the Ivy League, expect you to be taking four years of language, math, science, English, and, yes, history. If you drop one of these during junior or senior year to make room for another history course, you may feel like you are strengthening your position for your prospective major, but you are actually seriously harming your chances of getting into a dream school.
But back to the extracurriculars. Technically, you can do anything outside of the classroom — but you can’t ‘do just anything’ if you actually want to get into a dream school. Very few colleges have extracurricular requirements that they mandate students fulfill before matriculating. Ultimately, you are on your own to decide what is best. This is awesome, but also overwhelming. Since you can do anything, what do you pick? That’s the point of this post.
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Below we’ve broken the key activities for prospective history majors down into four ‘buckets.’ You must be doing something for each of these. Doubling down in one will not make up for missing or skipping another. The great thing is that you still have time to get things done. You are a junior, so the clock is ticking. But there are still months before you press submit on your applications to make things happen.
HUMANITIES CLUB
As a junior, you need to be an active member of a club that intersects with history — and you need to be on a leadership track. You are probably already a member of a club that fits the bill, but let’s break it down just in case. Ideally, you are a member of a history-centric club. If there is not a history club at your school, it could be an English club, a literature club, or a broader humanities club.
Crucially, you need to be on a leadership track. Meet with the club faculty advisor, and ask what you can do to put yourself on a trajectory towards leadership. It can also be useful to meet with the current leaders. Ask them how you can support them in accomplishing their goals for the group, then follow-through.
And if no club like this exists at your school, start one. Recruit some likeminded peers, convince a teacher to become a faculty advisor, and get to it.
SCHOOL PAPER
In addition to being a member of a history or humanities club, we encourage our juniors interested in history to write for the school paper. This isn’t because you will be writing about history. Instead, it is all about the writing part. As a history major, you will be expected to be an extremely strong writer. Working with the school paper will develop these skills, and offers opportunities for leadership, recognition, and — importantly — a title. Being able to list a title, be it Editor, Contributing Writer, Columnist, or anything else that sounds official, is important. It stands out to colleges, and shows commitment and emphasizes your ability to thrive within an organization of driven individuals.
In addition to reporting on whatever you are most interested in, propose that you write a column related to current events that are relevant to history…which is basically everything that happens ever. For example, you could be writing each issue about how a current happening is tied to a specific past event. This could be local, national, or international.
RESEARCH
One of the most powerful ways for potential history majors to stand out when applying to highly-selective schools is to pursue independent research. There are a number of places for high school students to publish their work, the most famous being The Concord Review. If you are early in your junior year, you have time to research, write, and submit to The Concord Review, but you also need to have a back-up plan. The Concord Review accepts a tiny fraction of applicants, and it is equivalent to getting into Harvard. So, like when applying to an Ivy, you need to have a strong alternative that you would also be excited about. This could be another national publication, a website that publishes teen research, or the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards through the Critical Essay or Journalism categories.
If you have a connection to a college professor or graduate student in history, that can be another amazing avenue towards research experience. Pursue it respectfully, and understand that working as a research assistant may mostly consist of menial work like scanning source documents. That’s okay, and is also sort of the point. You get to learn what goes into doing great work, and that’s a privilege.
SUMMER COURSE
All high school juniors interested in history should consider taking a summer course of some kind — online or in-person — that is through a respected university and that comes with credit if you excel (which you should). This isn’t because colleges are necessarily super impressed by you completing a course, and it isn’t because the credit will necessarily transfer. Rather, we encourage students to do a summer course because it shows genuine commitment to your passion for history, and a go-get-it attitude that communicates confidence, enthusiasm, and strength. By choosing to do coursework outside of simply what is offered in school, you are putting a stake in the ground in a powerful way.
Getting into an exceptional college as a prospective history major isn’t harder than any other major, and it may even be easier statistically as top colleges are hungry for students looking to pursue humanities majors. But that doesn’t make it easy. You are among a massive pool of qualified applicants, and standing out requires strategy, commitment, and follow-through. You can do this; you just need to get going.
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