Path Perspectives

Path Perspectives is a series of articles written by our mentors, offering firsthand advice on college admissions, balancing academics, extracurriculars, and finding the best path to your dream school. Each piece shares a unique, personal perspective you won’t find anywhere else.

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Academic Success

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How to Approach Your Common App & UC essay

College admission officers have three sheets of material to judge your entire existence. Your resume, transcript, and teacher recommendations can only say so much about your life and interests…Things to keep in mind when writing your Common App and UC Essays.

The Art of Building a College List

The golden rule everyone kept throwing at me was: “Have your REACH schools, your MATCH schools, and your SAFETY schools.” It was confusing at first. How am I supposed to know if something’s a “reach” until I get rejected? But once I dug and started to make my college list, it started to all make sense.

Brainstorming Your College Essay

College essays are unequivocally the most important part of your college applications. This post introduces three exercises to help you begin brainstorming your essays.

How to (start to) Build a College List

During my Junior year of high school, my father gifted me a 800 page book listing nearly every college in the United States. Sitting before this enormous book, which was nearly too large for me to carry, I felt incredibly overwhelmed.

Why You Should Go To Office Hours

Attending office hours is one of the best ways to enhance your college experience and academic success. This blog dives into why making time for office hours can improve your grades, help you form strong relationships with professors, and support your future career or grad school plans.

How I Increased My SAT Score by Simply Reading For Pleasure Everyday

Fast forward to the actual exam, and the results were astounding. I remember actually looking forward to the reading section, no longer intimidated by long, complex passages or the daunting time limit.

Extracurriculars & Impactful Projects

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High School Success Starts in the Summer

I used to think summer was for checking out, ignoring the planner, and just floating through July like a pool noodle. And for a few summers growing up, I did exactly that. But what I didn’t realize until later was that summer can be the most powerful stretch of the year.

A Summer Reading List for Curious Minds

An article in The Atlantic recently caught my attention: The Elite College Students who Can’t Read Books…

Summer 101: Exploring Your Interests

You often hear, “make the most of summer” — but what does that mean, and how do you begin?

Breaking Out of Your Comfort Zone

For any high schooler with dreams of attending an Ivy League or top-ranked school, my advice is simple: Get out of your comfort zone. Start that club, join that team, and take on those leadership positions.

Project-Based Learning Can Make All of the Difference for High School Students

What happens when a student gets to do a project they’re passionate about? In the case of a real, Bay Area high school student like this, he was able to change his life and find his real passion through Path Mentors Co, an education company for high school students to work with recent Ivy League graduates on projects they’re interested in.

Strategically Picking Your Passions

Sometimes, becoming the best student you can be means choosing what you are passionate about with strategy.

How to Put Together the Best Art Portfolio for Colleges

How do you create a portfolio of art for college admissions?

How to Make the Most Out of a Summer Internship

A summer internship is a great opportunity—so what do you do with it?

Finding Harmony: Balancing School, Extracurriculars, and Interests

Finding balance as a student doesn’t have to be hard.

Michael’s Story of Mentorship

The true success story of one of our Path Mentor’s mentees.

What I Learned from Founding a Club in High School

For me, founding a club in high school is one of the most rewarding and memorable experiences that I can remember.

What Can Students Do During COVID-19?

Due to quarantine and reduced school and work hours, students may be finding themselves with more spare time than usual. Staying healthy should be your top priority, especially since the US has higher rates of young adults contracting COVID-19 than other countries. Staying healthy includes taking care of your mental health. In this tumultuous time, it is totally okay to focus on yourself. Colleges and schools will be understanding if you focus on taking care of yourself during this time instead of on your resume.

Importance of Extracurriculars for Your College Application

My first year of high school, I joined the Service-Learning Team, a group that spent Tuesday afternoons at local elementary schools leading enrichment activities and spent Thursday afternoons discussing the socio-political components of our relationship with the students: underfunding of private schools, the cycle of poverty, and so on. I strongly believed in the mission of the group, but the work itself wasn’t for me—I wasn’t very good at arts and crafts or soccer, and I didn’t have a natural rapport with young children. So I made a decision that would ultimately come to occupy the majority of my free time in the next four years: I met with the director of the program, our school’s ethics teacher, and suggested we expand our outreach. In other words, I saw a missing piece, and I suggested how to fix it.

How to Approach Volunteering for College Applications

For U.S. college applications, there are many components that determine their success. Of course, your grades are paramount and without passing the requisite thresholds, most other things won’t matter. However, if you have been able to get decent grades, then it becomes very important to consider the other aspects of your college application.

How to Stand Out as a Good [Multi-Tasking] Student

One of the hardest parts of high school is balancing everything that is happening. People often joke that you cannot “do it all”, and realistically, you cannot while still maintaining your health, friendships, and happiness. The way around this is learning how to combine things to kill two (or even more) birds with one stone and be opportunistic with your environment.

Mindset & Personal Growth

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What Can You Picture Yourself Doing?

Summer is the perfect time for high school students to explore interests, try new experiences, and reflect on future career paths.

In Search of What You Have

I fell asleep the other day under the shade of the bodhi tree…

Managing and Growing your Relationship with your Parents in College

Getting into the college that you wanted was probably the most paramount focus you had during the past few months.

Nurturing Relationships for Stellar Letters of Rec

High school is not just a place to gain knowledge; it can also be a place where you can cultivate meaningful relationships with your teachers and mentors. These relationships can prove to be instrumental when it comes time to apply for college. A compelling recommendation letter can make your application stand out from the rest. Here's a guide on how to build strong connections with your high school teachers while also securing a stellar recommendation letter.

On Academics, Athletics, Art, and Family Responsibilities

Both my parents worked 9am–5pm jobs, so I took on the responsibility of picking up my younger brother from elementary school each day. This duty, though seemingly simple, was seriously hard to implement into my daily schedule as a busy and overwhelmed high school student with dreams of attending a top university. I remember pleading with my parents to find some other solution for picking up my brother but there wasn’t any. Despite this added responsibility, I still managed to thrive as a varsity athlete, be an active leader of my school's art club, and ultimately secure admission to Brown University.

Growing Through Discomfort

High school is a period marked by profound changes and opportunities for growth. For someone like myself, who started as a quiet introvert in and out of the classroom, the idea of evolving into a confident and outgoing person in my daily activities seemed almost unthinkable. Yet, my own path, marked by the hurdles of language barriers and doubts, shows that with the right mix of chances, support, and attitude, anyone can turn into a leader.

Path Perspectives

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