Cal Newport

Provides tips on getting in to college without overwhelming schedules and constant stress.

A Revolutionary Plan to Get Into College by Standing Out (Without Burning Out)

How to Be a High School Superstar

Hannah Yang

This was an awesome book! I think it's encouraging to high school students and it is engaging enough for a high school student such as myself to read without losing interest. Below are the main points of the novel, summarized to the best of my abilities:

Part 1: The Law of Underscheduling
- Relaxed superstars basically do less, but seem to do more. 
- Instead of pursuing many activities that you are not actually interested in (resumé padding; breadth without depth; call it what you will), and taking the most challenging and impressive-sounding courses, free up your schedule.
- This means that you might have to *gasp* quit classes and activities that don't really matter to you.
- Make time to explore your interests and develop a genuine, deep interest (not passion!) - become an interesting person.
- Try to achieve an ideal student workday and set a specific time every day to stop working. By separating your work time and your free time, you'll be more focused and effective when you work, and you'll get more out of the time you spend exploring your interests.

Part 2: The Law of Focus
- The Superstar Effect: Little differences in ability lead to huge differences in benefit. The best way I can explain this is the Olympics. Even if you are beaten by a millisecond, a silver in the Olympics reaps way fewer benefits than gold. 
- In other words, being good is usually not enough to create impressiveness. You have to be the best.
- Also, it doesn't matter how difficult the activity actually is, as long as you are the best at it in the admissions pool. 
- The Superstar Effect only takes effect if there is 'proof' that you are an expert/master/the best at the activity, such as press coverage or glowing recommendations.
- Once you accomplish something, you can achieve complementary accomplishments with little additional effort. If you have a solid foundation in leadership, as one of the book's examples did, you'll continue to achieve things related to leadership with little effort on your part.
- If you have identified one thing to focus on, you need to become good at it. You can do this by learning how to be good at it (reach out to experts but also study failures), completely immersing yourself in the activity, and reaching the point where you are skilled enough that good opportunities will come your way (opportunities that won't require an excessive time commitment).

Part 3: The Law of Innovation
- People are impressed by things that they cannot imagine themselves doing - so the goal is not to do something difficult, but to do something that is hard to explain.
- Innovators don't try to be innovative. They don't have a Eureka! moment where they suddenly dedicate their high school careers to one grand project. 
- Innovators join closed communities (communities that people recognize, but do not understand the inner workings of) and pay their dues. In other words, they become positively recognized within the community first.
- Innovators don't start out with the biggest idea. They start with small, doable projects and work their way up to an 'impressive' project.
- Basically, people who succeed take the opportunities they get and work hard, which leads to more opportunities.

Hopefully the summary is informative to those of you who are unsure if the book would be helpful. I have definitely left out some good points made in the book, so if these main points pique your interest, I would recommend checking How to Be a High School Superstar out!

linda

- it’s possible to be a zen valedictorian 
- quality above quantity 
- helpful study techniques

How to Be a High School Superstar A Revolutionary Plan to Get Into College by Standing Out (Without Burning Out)

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