# How to fully "take advantage of available opportunities" in my community

**URL:** <https://experthub.prepscholar.com/t/how-to-fully-take-advantage-of-available-opportunities-in-my-community/7939>\
**Category:** Answers\
**Tags:** bay, opportunities, area, collegeapplications\
**Created:** [November 4, 2016, 3:35pm UTC](https://experthub.prepscholar.com/t/how-to-fully-take-advantage-of-available-opportunities-in-my-community/7939 "2016-11-04T15:35:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jzhang](https://experthub.prepscholar.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@jzhang](https://experthub.prepscholar.com/u/jzhang)\
**Post date:** [November 4, 2016, 3:35pm UTC](https://experthub.prepscholar.com/t/how-to-fully-take-advantage-of-available-opportunities-in-my-community/7939/1 "2016-11-04T15:35:34Z")

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Hello,

I keep seeing that colleges want you to show that you have taken full advantage of the opportunities available to you...what exactly does this mean (for a highly competitive public school in the Bay Area) and how does one accomplish this?

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**Author:** ![Laura\_PrepScholar](https://experthub.prepscholar.com/user_avatar/experthub.prepscholar.com/laura_prepscholar/32/15_2.png) [@Laura\_PrepScholar](https://experthub.prepscholar.com/u/Laura_PrepScholar)\
**Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 4:41am UTC](https://experthub.prepscholar.com/t/how-to-fully-take-advantage-of-available-opportunities-in-my-community/7939/2 "2016-11-16T04:41:29Z")

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"Taking advantage of available opportunities" can mean a couple of different things. Academically, it means that you should **strive to take advanced classes and excel at them**. This doesn't mean that you should [overload yourself with AP classes](https://blog.prepscholar.com/how-many-ap-classes-do-you-need-for-ivy-league-schools) just for the sake of having taken them, but it does mean that you should take honors or advanced classes in your areas of interest. For example, when I was in my (highly competitive) public high school, I opted to continue taking Chinese my senior year instead of taking AP Statistics (since the class schedules conflicted), even though it meant I couldn't take any other math classes (since I'd finished up BC Calc the year before).

There's also the [extracurriculars](https://blog.prepscholar.com/best-extracurricular-activities-for-college) piece, although again, you shouldn't just do extracurricular activities for the sake of doing them; instead, focus your time and energy on activities that you are passionate about. Don't waste your time trying to be "well-rounded" for the sake of college applications or do a bunch of unrelated activities and hope colleges can string them together into a coherent narrative of someone who's good at things. If you haven't already, I would highly recommend reading our article on [how to get into Harvard and the Ivy League](https://blog.prepscholar.com/how-to-get-into-harvard-and-the-ivy-league-by-a-harvard-alum), which goes into greater detail about showing colleges what you have to offer.