If you are a sophomore interested in chemical engineering, you may not have been thinking much about college yet — and that’s okay. But it’s also not ideal if you have lofty goals for college. You can’t hit something that you aren’t aiming for. So, let’s set a target and create a strategy.
The best colleges in the country for chemical engineering include Stanford, MIT, Cal Tech, UC Berkeley, UT Austin, Princeton, Georgia Tech, and the University of Michigan. Students with a chemical engineering degree go on to work for the largest companies in the world, guiding and furthering innovation. To get to that future, you need to get the degree. And identifying your dream school is the first step.
Of course, you need to be getting outstanding grades in the hardest courses that you have access to, especially in the STEM fields, all through high school. And if your standardized test scores are the second leg of the stool, your activities are the third. You can begin prepping for the SAT or ACT as a sophomore, but that isn’t where we really want you putting your time and energy into outside of classwork. Instead, we want you focusing on your extracurricular activities. This means the clubs, teams, and other activities that you are doing.
In this post, we’re going to help you figure out how to allocate your efforts by breaking down what activities will be most impactful for you when it comes to college admissions. Again, that may feel far away but it truly is coming up quick — so, let’s get to work.
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As a sophomore, you have a lot of opportunities and time. Maybe you don’t have many free hours in the day, but when we zoom out you have a great amount of time to take actions and make moves that truly shape the narrative for your future.
ENGINEERING CLUB OR TEAM
It is extremely important that you are a member of an engineering-focused club at school. This could be a robotics team, a STEM-focused club, or an engineering club. And, if you have options, it could be more than one. But you shouldn’t be in three. At three STEM-themed clubs or teams, you actually undercut the power of what you are a part of. In additional, very few high schools will let a student become head of more than two clubs (in an effort to fairly distribute leadership positions). Instead, focus on one or two clubs and aim for leadership junior or senior year.
To do this, do three things:
Schedule a meeting with the current club heads, and ask them how you can best support them in their goals. Helping the club leaders accomplish what they are aiming for will be an amazing opportunity to practice leadership now on a small scale, and set yourself up for future leadership.
Meet with the faculty advisor. Ask what you need to be doing to be on a track towards leadership. They probably won’t tell you anything surprising or supremely actionable at this moment, but simply expressing your interest is important.
Find a leadership niche. As a sophomore, you can have a leadership role without being the club head (yet). Work with the current leadership to identify an initiative, event, or committee within the club that you can lead now. This gives you an opportunity to learn and grow, while adding meaningful leadership experience to your resume that will help you with some of your other activity goals.
RESEARCH
Next, you need to pursue an independent science research project solo or with a small team. This should be directly related to your interest in chemical engineering.
We advise our students who are closer to the start of their high school career, namely freshman and sophomores, to aim for something big like the iconic Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair. Now, the odds of winning this are slim and most projects take more than one year so you have to estimate that whatever you pursue will continue into junior year. If Regeneron feels too big to aim for right now, there are myriad smaller science fairs and competitions ranging from the school district-level to county, state, and region. You don’t need to invent a new compound or save the world, but you need to show true and deep curiosity and pursue a project with enthusiasm.
SERVICE
We also want to see you pursuing service with a STEM bend. Look for opportunities at school and through your local library for tutoring students on subjects that you are a whiz at. There may even be local nonprofits that you can partner with. Tutoring plays to your strengths and illustrates so many things for colleges. It shows how you care for others, how you show up for your community, how you work to pass along your skills and talents, and it’s a bonus that working with younger kids is cute.
SUMMER PROGRAMS
Summer programs typically cost money, and some people use this as a way to discredit their validity as part of a student’s activities in high school. We don’t buy this argument, because private school isn’t devalued simply due to cost, and the same goes for things like travel sports. You do not need to do a summer program to be a strong applicant, much like you don’t need to go to private school. However, you should be open to the idea of a summer program that is a perfect interest fit for you, within your means, and an outstanding way of strengthening your profile as a STEM applicant with a chemical engineering focus.
We advise our sophomores to seriously consider a summer program with two key caveats. First, it must be STEM not summer camp. Bonfires are great, but this is about learning engineering not marshmallow toasting techniques. Next, it needs to be directly related to what you are most interested in and allow you to truly focus on what you care about academically.
And don’t bet that doing a summer program at a dream school will increase your chances of acceptance. Typically, it doesn’t. Instead, you need to use any summer program as a launch pad into future successes and achievements that will capture the attention of your dream schools.
As a sophomore, you are in a powerful position. You can truly make or break your college applications for ultra-selective schools in this moment. If you take advantage of the time you have, lean into your passions, and push yourself beyond perceived limitations, you can set yourself on a trajectory towards a dream school. Activities are a core piece of this process. So, let’s make it happen.
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