Do. Or Do Not. There Is No Try.

Yoda never applied to college. But if he had, I suspect his extracurricular profile would have been exceptional.

The old Jedi master’s most famous piece of wisdom—“Do. Or do not. There is no try.”—turns out to be surprisingly good college admission advice. A common pattern I see in my work with high school students is that they find themselves “frozen” when it comes to their extracurricular activities. They sit across from me, anxious and uncertain, asking some version of the same question: What should I be doing?

Sometimes they come to me as juniors or even seniors, realizing too late that the window for building a meaningful extracurricular profile has mostly closed. The hard truth is that no counselor, not even one with decades of experience, can manufacture a compelling extracurricular story in the final stretch of high school.

The Advice Trap

I understand why students wait for direction. The college admission process can feel impossibly complex, and the instinct to seek expert guidance before acting makes sense. But here’s something I’ve observed over and over again:

• Students who spend their high school years waiting to be told what to do almost always end up with weaker extracurricular profiles than students who never ask anyone’s permission in the first place.

There’s nothing wrong with seeking advice. But advice works best when it supports momentum that already exists—not when it’s expected to create it from scratch.

The Students Who Don’t Need Me

The students who consistently stand out in the college admission process share one trait above all others: they just go for it.

They have an interest—maybe one, maybe two, maybe more—and they pursue it. They don’t wait for a counselor to hand them a roadmap. They don’t search for specialized programs designed to look good on applications.

These students find the opportunities naturally connected to what they actually care about, and those opportunities tend to multiply on their own. One experience leads to another. Depth develops organically. And by the time they’re applying to college, they have a story that practically tells itself.

This is exactly the kind of authenticity that admission officers at selective colleges are trained to recognize and reward.

What “Just Going For It” Actually Looks Like

I’m not suggesting students should pursue activities randomly or without reflection. What I am saying is that the energy many students spend waiting for the “right” answer would be far better spent simply starting.

For example:

• Are you interested in environmental science? Find out who in your community is doing work in that space and ask how you can help.
• Can’t get enough of Dungeons and Dragons? Start a D&D club at your school, or volunteer to teach younger kids how to play.
• Drawn to creative writing, coding, entrepreneurship, or athletics? Start now, at whatever level makes sense, and let your commitment and curiosity carry you further.

And if you try something and find that it no longer interests you? That’s not failure. That’s how authentic engagement actually works. Stop, reflect, and pursue the next activity that genuinely calls to you. The earlier in high school you start this exploration process, the more time you’ll have to devote to the activities that really matter to you, allowing you to build a robust, clear extracurricular profile in the process.

The students with the strongest extracurricular profiles aren’t the ones who followed a formula—they followed their instincts.

Take A Step In The Right Direction

Yoda had it right. Stop trying to figure out the perfect path and just start walking. The most powerful step you can take for your college application right now has nothing to do with applications, but it has everything to do with showing up, with enthusiasm and authenticity, for the things that actually excite you.

And if you’d like help making sense of how your genuine interests translate into a compelling college application, I’d be glad to talk.

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Over the course of many years as an Independent Educational Consultant, I have gained a lot of expertise in how the college application process works. If you’re interested in benefiting from my time-tested advice, please contact me.