Timeline For Applicants

Academics
Work with your teachers and advisors to generate a challenging schedule each year that will allow you to maintain a high GPA and gain the maximum exposure to the subjects you find most appealing. Colleges look for applicants who have performed solidly in all of their courses and who have begun to develop a strong academic interest in one or more subject areas. Throughout your high school career, you should continue to strengthen the academic skills you began to develop in middle school. Use extra help sessions and study halls to your full advantage. Make readings and homework assignments more meaningful aids to your understanding of the material by taking careful notes and asking questions in class. Work with study partners or groups as you prepare for tests, and don’t be afraid to seek help when you need it. Among the many advantages of attending a small, independent school such as MacDuffie is that you are able to get that kind of individualized attention, so take advantage of it. 

Extracurricular Activities
Choose extracurricular activities not on the basis of how it will look on your college applications, but on your level of interest. College admissions officers want to see evidence of sustained, active interest in a few important activities. To be sure, many MacDuffie students are involved in numerous activities across the spectrum of possibilities. We applaud the kind of commitment to community this type of involvement requires, but we discourage students from doing a little bit of everything in order to pad their resumes. As you begin to mature, take on leadership roles in some of your chosen activities. As you do so, don’t shy away from documenting your participation or your most significant achievements; this documentation will come in handy as you begin the college application process.

Standardized Tests
When it comes to preparing for standardized tests such as the PSAT, the SAT and the SAT II subject tests, you have a variety of options. One of the best things you can do is to develop your vocabulary through reading challenging literature, in and out of class. We offer some SAT prep at MacDuffie, but there are a number of outside test preparation options available to students who are interested. We make sure students are familiar with the format of the test, let them know when the tests are held and encourage students to eat right and sleep well in preparation. Standardized tests are only one component of the college application, but they remain an important factor for many schools when determining a student’s admissibility.