How can I improve my chances of getting into a college while majoring in Marketing?

When going to college you are not expected to deeply understand marketing. Sure a good understanding of what Marketing is will help you as your entering your marketing classes, but it is not needed. To be honest as a high school student it is extremely difficult to find a marketing internship. However, I recommend you start looking for a marketing internship during your Sophomore or Junior year of college. (It still is hard to find one during your freshman year of college, but it is a bit more likely you can get one if you're applying as college freshman rather than as a high student.)

Most colleges will have an intro marketing type of class that will prep you for the rest of your marketing classes (Examples are Business to Business Marketing, Business to Consumer Marketing, Integrated Marketing Communications, etc.) Your next steps are to just apply for the bachelors in marketing degree program at whatever college you are attending. It's simple as that no prior internships are required. :)

Hi Shayal

You have been given some excellent advice already. One additional thought to consider is to gain insight into your true strengths and use them as a guideline for your educational and career options. My favorite assessment is StrengthsFinder. It will produce a great report that not only reveals your true strengths, but also provides insight into how to best utilize those strengths in your professional (and personal) journey. You may want to start with the assessment to see if it helps define potential path(s).

Marketing is a big field, so I would first start by considering which parts of marketing you really enjoy. Do you prefer the more creative, social media, and brand side of marketing? Are you more interested in analytics? Or would you rather interact directly with people through community events?

I recommend focusing on the skills that would make you a good marketer rather than entire profession of marketing. So if you decide you really like brand/creative, perhaps take a graphic design class or run social media for an organization. If you like interacting with people, then help plan events at your school or in your community.

I also recommend exploring the topic areas that get you excited. That way, you have a better idea of what type of company or group you want to work for. Are you excited about new technology? Or perhaps you enjoy theater and the arts? Or maybe it's environmental causes? Once you decide on that, get involved with organizations or take classes that match those interests. Often, the best marketers are the ones who are passionate about the topic they're advocating for.

Best of luck!

Hi Shayal,

Agreed with what has been said that it is difficult to find marketing opportunities while still in high school, but that doesn't mean you can't. I used to an unpaid internship in office inputting their customer information into Salesforce and managing their customer database. Also helping them develop monthly newsletter which taught me a lot of research and tools. So you can definitely look into something like that.

But #1 thing I think you can do in high school is figure out what excites you about marketing. There's a lot of information about different fields within marketing. Look at LinkedIn profile of people and see what they do. If you can figure out 1) if Marketing truly excites you and 2) what about marketing that excites you, it will make choosing major, classes, internships, jobs much easier in the future.

Hope this helps.