Follow your heart While Making Career Choice

Every year highly selective colleges receive applications from academically gifted students far in excess of their required class size. These students have high GPA or high school rank along with SAT scores in the top 25 percentile.

Not all make the final cut. So if you think you are a mathematics wizard who solves tough calculus problems while your mother feeds you dinner, rethink your priorities. Free up time and get involved in activities that inspire you and project your candidature holistically. If you have to free up time to follow your passion do so early in classes IX and X and build on your strengths over the years.

Describing the monotony of his weekly schedule, Karmanaya Agarwal, first year student at University of Illinois (www.uiuc.edu), says "Once my family decided that the US will be our preferred destination, I quit IIT entrance preparatory classes and started focusing on working for the school's computer science club and participating in regional and national quiz competitions. However, I am grateful that the high level of science and math preparation in those classes helped me improve my grades in school."

Community service and volunteering are common activities that most high school students participate in. However, Arjun Chhabra, freshman in Cornell University (www.cornell.edu) took his interest to another level. He moved to Washington D.C while in Class X after his father joined the diplomatic mission, and started working with Chintan when he came back to India for summer.

Chintan is a non-profit organisation that empowers the marginalised community of rag pickers who live in deplorable conditions in and around the various landfills in Delhi. On his return to America he helped raise funds for the NGO by organising samosa drives in his high school.

Internship and volunteering activities often help students identify their strengths and interests. Divya Balaji, first year student at Yale University (www.yale.edu) worked with the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust over the summer.