If you are a junior interested in an English major in college, first of all let us say that you are awesome. In an era that is heavy on the STEM fields, it isn’t common for students these days to want to pursue English at a top-tier school like an Ivy League or similarly competitive college. And yet, English majors are some of our faves. As an English major, you study literature and the written word, you learn how to write persuasively, how to break down anything you read analytically — and how to develop creative work.
Students who study English go on to teach at all levels, to write and edit for leading publications and literary journals, and they bring their skills to companies that have nothing to do with an English major but everything to do with communicating through words.
As a junior in high school, though, you have your work cut out for you if you want to get into a top school, even as an exceptionally strong student. Students interested in a STEM field have a clear path to stand out. They participate in science fairs and robotics competitions and the like, and can earn awards that show their excellence. As a humanities student, it’s a bit tougher. There aren’t as many ways in which you can show your strengths outside of coursework, and unfortunately options for English electives are often very limited in school.
In this post, we’ll break down the critical ways that you need to be emphasizing your interest in English through your activities outside of your standard coursework. To get into a top school, you need to have the grades and you need to have the scores — but all of the other strong applicants have those on their side. So, you need something else to really show how strong you are. That’s where activities come in.
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You are a junior, so you’ve already been doing a lot since you got to high school. You are probably very proud, and rightly so, of what you have accomplished, and it may be a little overwhelming to be told that you need to do more. We get it, it’s a lot. But it doesn’t have to be overwhelming if you break things down and approach them systematically. You don’t have to do everything below between today and the day you press submit on your college applications, but we do encourage it. There is nothing on here ‘just because.’ All are important, and all play a role in strengthening your application. Let’s dig in.
LITERARY JOURNAL
First, we want to see you as a leader of the school literary journal. Ideally, you will be the Editor-In-Chief or equivalent by senior year. This requires a significant investment of time building community, leadership, and trust. If you haven’t already been doing this and working towards the goal of leadership, you need to do it now.
If your school doesn’t have a literary journal that accepts creative writing and poetry from students, you need to create one now. It isn’t easy to do, but it’s also not that hard. You could publish online, or in print. It could be a blog, or a PDF you format on Canva. You could take the official route through your school, or make it with friends outside of the umbrella of high school.
What matters most is that you are a key player in the production of this literary journal, and that your name is on — if not on the top of — the masthead.
WRITING AWARDS AND RECOGNITIONS
All prospective English majors should not only be producing their own creative writing work and literary analysis, but also submitting it for recognitions and awards. The most well-known awards are the . It is imperative that you submit to Scholastic, even if it feels like you are sending work off into an abyss without a promise of return. Just do it.
There are also so many local and regional writing competitions that you should consider submitting too. Obviously, these are unique to your hometown so it will require some research. The first place to start, though, is by talking to your favorite English teacher. They are an amazing resource as you pursue recognition for your hard work. They’ve had students before you, and they’ve probably been in this spot themselves, too. They are you biggest closest and most accessible resource — unless you work with us — so talk to them.
BOOK/LITERATURE CLUB
You also need to be a member of a discussion-based book or literature club, and ideally be a leader of it. A typical book club includes assigned books or readings, and discussions to talk about them. If your school doesn’t have a book club, start one. If they do, you better be in it and working towards leadership senior year if you aren’t already a leader.
Also, we encourage our students to add a service arm to their book club. Read to children at the local library during story hour, tutor young elementary students on reading, or even visit a nursing facility to read to seniors. Do something that connects you to your community through literature and reading. This shows colleges that you care for your community, and that you do more than read a book alone. You bring books to others, and that is awesome.
SUMMER WRITING INTENSIVE
For most majors, it doesn’t make sense to do a summer program as a high school junior. For potential English majors, things are a little different. We don’t recommend that you do a normal run-of-the-mill summer program that is mostly full of younger students, but we do often help our students get into competitive summer writing and English intensives, like the Yale Writers’ Workshops and the Hofstra Creative Writing Intensive, among many others. The key is finding the right program for you that strengthens you in your passions, emphasizes the things that excite you, and develops your skills as a student of English.
Getting into a dream school as an English major is about much more than strong grades and scores. There has to be an ‘it’ factor that goes beyond excelling in the bare basics. That ‘it’ comes from showing your enthusiasms, creating a legacy in your high school, and elevating your peers. We support our students in doing exactly this, to astounding results.
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