First of all, worry is a waste of time. What do you enjoy learning about or reading about? Try to “shadow” someone who does something you are even possibly interested in, like law enforcement, accounting, a librarian, ANYTHING that piques your interest. You can go to college and start out without a major— everyone has to take the same basic crap to start out anyway. You can get bowling out of the way while you are figuring stuff out. Most important is that you enjoy LIFE while making enough of a living to pay your bills and have some fun along the way.

Well, you are going to have to get some extracurricular activities, whether you do them inside or outside of school. You won’t get into any really good colleges without the extracurricular activites. My advice would be to find a couple of activities that interest you. If nothing else seems to interest you, you can join a club like Interact or Key Club, where you will be volunteering (volunteering is ALWAYS considered a plus on an application, and colleges know what Key Club and Interact are). Then find another one. Try to get invovled and get a leadership position. You seem like an academic, so you should find out if your school has an “academic team” or a “quiz bowl team.” If it does, figure out how to join it. It’s basically answering a lot of trivia questions. It’s fun, I promise. In addition to your 2 clubs, join any honor socities that you possibly can join. Your school probably has national Honor Society and/or Beta Club, and it may have Mu Alpha Theta and/or foreign language honor societies.

Don’t stretch yourself out with too many clubs, sports, or music-related activities, though you will see a lot of students doing several clubs or activities that require many hours and hours of time. In general, it is a good idea to be heavily involved in like 2 activities, in addtion to joining all honor societies that you can. Do about 10-12 hours of extracurriculars per week, and no more than that–otherwise, your grades could suffer, or you will get really stressed out.

During next summer, or any extra time you have during the school year, try to either find a place(s) where you can volunteer regularly, or else get a summer job. As I said, volunteer experience and/or work experience look great on your college applications.

Like you, I didn’t really think I was talented in anywhere but academics (I wasn’t athletic, good at music, or anything else; I was just smart). So I tended to shy away from clubs and other activities. What I ended up doing was academic team for three years. I also did Latin club, which was really worth nothing given the fact that it only met once per month (though I at least attended Latin conventions for all four years of high school). I joined three honor societies (math, latin, and national Honor Society), and I served as the President of the math one. I did one volunteer activity for 2 hrs/week during my senior year, and I did volunteer work for two organizations the summer before my senior year. That was really all I did (I tried to work Interact into my schedule during both 11th and 12th grade, but i couldn’t get to all of the events, so I couldn’t put that club on my college application). I still got into good universities, including the (very prestigious) College of William and Mary, but i wish I had been able to do a little more in terms of extracurriculars.

As far as determining your career, just keep taking classes that interest you for now. You’ll probaly have an idea of a few things you want to major in by the end of your senior year. Take classes in those things during your freshman year of college, and you’ll probably be able to narrow yourself to one major. You can still change your major a couple of times while you are in college and finish your degree in four years. So don’t worry. You have to do what you like in terms of a major and a career (otherwise you will be miserable, even if you do make a lot of money), but that doesn’t mean that what you like has to be something that won’t make you a lot of money anyhow.

Dude, chill out. Take your mom’s valium if you have to. Just try to stop stressing for a second, and you’ll thank me later.

Don’t aim for the Ivies or New Ivies (NYU, Columbia, etc) unless you have family connections to them. Even for amazing students, you won’t have much of a chance. Look for lower-tier private or public schools in state if tuition is an issue, because they’ll be able to give you the most money, and they’re a sure thing if you have good grades. If you can afford to spend a little more or your parents will support you even slightly, look for a place out of state with a campus life that sounds good to you – private, because more people will be serious students, and big, so you have a lot of classes to choose from and people to meet.

Take some time to think about what you want to major in. Relax about academics and explore things you’ve always been interested in, but have never tried. Clubs are a good thing, but don’t do them just to impress colleges – they can see through that deal, somehow. Admissions aren’t that hard as long as you aim low. I know that sounds bad, but stay with me. What school you go to as an undergraduate doesn’t matter, and here’s why.

If all you care about is money, you’ll want to do medical, law, or business school, but to be honest, those don’t come into play until you’re a grad student. Undergrad doesn’t matter for most grad programs, and as long as meet some minimum requirements (ie., a couple semesters of math and science for med school) and have a good academic record, you’ve got a shot. Let me make this clear: the school you go to, what you major in, is really unimportant if you plan on going to graduate school. They care more about your grades and your test scores than the college those are coming from.

Once you’re in college, you’ll have 4 years to understand yourself, what you want for a career, how you want to live your life, everything in the big picture you’re stressing about now. That’s what undergrad is for. Grad school, sure, you’ll have to buckle down and work your *** off, but you won’t have to worry about that for a long time now.

As far as admissions go, I was a slacker in high school, got mediocre (B+ at best) grades, no honors classes or extracurriculars. I managed to get into a decent private school with a 2/3 scholarship, out of state even… so it’s not that hard. Just apply to a ton of places. You’ll figure the rest out without having to try.