Juilliard’s way too far up. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the Suzuki method, but I’m only in book four so I wouldn’t say I’m the greatest. Intermediate at best.
My chapter seems pretty dead to be honest, and I couldn’t find anything specifically for teens. Would it be bad if I went to a town or two over until I found what I need?
The OP is in 9th grade, has never been allowed to go away from home yet, and is focusing on an 8 yr BA/MD program pretty far from home. If you want to quote from my posting, how about quoting this part:
“For right now, focus on doing the best you can in school. Choose the highest level, most rigorous classes in the disciplines that you enjoy, with the best teachers, and as long as you do the required number of years of each academic subject, you’ll be fine. Do the ECs that YOU want to do, not what you think would be best for med school admission some day. Read a ton, to improve your vocabulary and written English. Look for summer STEM institutes that you can attend - as an AA woman, they are ALL looking for you! Don’t get fixated on any particular college at this point - it is of no value to you right now. Spend today looking for and applying to summer programs for this coming summer, get out all the applications that you can until school picks up again, then focus on school achievement, and extracurriculars in and out of your high school.”
The reason that I am trying to put Penn on her radar is that her family hasn’t even let her go to overnight camp yet, she has an unsurpassed option half an hour from home, and it keeps open the possibility of free tuition for med school - a very real possibility for a high-achieving AA woman, that is not (as of now) an option at Brown.
Just for context, my kids spent summers without a relative in other countries as early as age ten, they flew by themselves internationally by age 12 (the earliest it was permitted), they traveled alone by inter-city bus and subwayed all over NYC by age 16 for the weekends, and still, I was not at all keen on the idea of them going to college more than 2 hours drive away if at all possible! Of course, since Boston, Providence, New Haven, and NYC were all within 2 hours drive, they had a lot of options, but still, I didn’t want my worldly, well-traveled kids going far away for college. Do your really think that a family that hasn’t let a 9th grader even go to overnight camp is going to be thrilled to send her from South Jersey to Providence for college?
I didn’t quote that aspect of your post because it was accurate and I was in agreement. The part I quoted and corrected was not accurate nor based on the type of first hand experience I provided.
In terms of OPs families willingness to allow her to expand her travel perimeter over the next 3 plus years I think we would all be guessing. She is interested in what Brown’s program offers and I think an accurate description is appropriate. Sorry if your feelings are hurt but I was deliberate in trying not to offend you by comparing schools or diminishing Penn in any way.
I suggest you speak to your guidance counselor or someone similar at the school. They’ll have pointers how previous students or upperclass(wo)men may have gone about it.
I don’t know how rural your area is and whether your towns are covered by professional services, a county-wide system, hospital-based ambulances, etc. So I can’t really speak intelligently about it. Generally, other than it having to be the same State, there is no residency requirement. However, from a practical standpoint there is an non-negotiable need to be able to respond within x minutes (as in “single digit” minutes) when you’re “toned out” (your pager/radio/phone app goes off).
If you were to attempt to do that for a neighboring town, you might have to plan to spend your duty shift at the station (you absolutely can bring your backpack and laptop, and work on papers and homework), some departments will even have sleeping couches for weekend shifts.
For my daughter, the station has become her second home, where she might meet up for an hour or two with other high-school or college-age friends, or she goes there to work on school/college projects rather than being alone in her room. And if suddenly there are multiple incidents in town, she’ll “man” one of the extra rigs, or drives to a scene in a fly-car to supervise/mentor an EMT who might now yet have dealt with a particular situation.
During the pandemic, this was an important way for her to not feel caged in.
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So it’s like the actual first responders sort of thing? That seems frightening at first. Do you get used to it?
I wouldn’t say my town is rural, I mean, our school size is a bit over 2,000, but relative to a lot of schools, it sort of is.
We don’t have a hospital in our town but there’s one 15 minutes away in the next one, so that should give some perspective.
On the other hand, that might not really be that atypical for someone JUST out of middle-school.
Consequently, I wouldn’t use 9th grade restrictions as a prediction for how the family feels by “13th” grade. They will see their young lady mature over the next 3 years, as will her peers, and they might realize that professional opportunities could require a physical separation for a few months each year.
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Yes, an EMT is about as close as you can get to experience being a Medical Doctor while still in high-school - before you decide that this is a career you aspire to. It typically means you ride in the passenger seat of the ambulance to an emergency in town (or possibly a neighboring town if they can’t raise a crew themselves).
No reason to be scared - it’s a gradual process! As a freshman, you’ll be too young to personally have patient contact! But within a year or so you’ll be old enough to attend EMT school and after passing the State exam, you’ll get increasingly hands-on - typically after a probationary period under field supervision of an experienced EMT.
It could be motor vehicle accident, a drug-overdose, a drunk (or perfectly sober) person hitting their head/shoulder/wrist in a fall, a lost hiker, a pool-drowning,… but, the vast majority of calls will just be someone who wants to be taken to the hospital 15 minutes away for some minor illness, or because they are anxious that something serious could be wrong. It will be a great opportunity to hone your bedside manners - but also to be professionally assertive when someone slightly intoxicated is getting “cute”.
You go the incident scene, get briefed by the police who likely arrived before you, take the patient’s vitals (blood pressure, pulse rate, oxygen saturation), get their medical history, note down any prescribed medication, or other legal or illegal drugs taken - and either get them to “RMA” (refuse attention), or you and your driver (possibly assisted by some bulky fireman/police officer) will put them on the stretcher onto the ambulance.
You might have to supply them with supplemental Oxygen - and hopefully seldomly will have to perform CPR by hand, but occasionally use the “Reeves” (LUCAS) machines for that, and/or use defibrillators.
You’ll pull up to the ambulance bay at the rear of the E/R, deliver your report to the nurse or Emergency Physician, gather up all your gear once the patient has been moved into their bed - and then have to restock any supplies used to be ready for the next call-out.
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So I guess it’ll help with my people skills and dealing with some form is urgency.
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Yes, but I also thought I had read that you had some interest in the medical field?
Besides all that, it can also be a way to earn part-time wages (at a higher pay rate than the typical restaurant job), especially during school/college breaks. Universities may even operate their own EMS that are staffed by paid students!
Many care homes, colleges, large companies - or rural towns - might be REQUIRED to have contracted private ambulance services. Those private services pay decent hourly wages, and one can sign up for shifts whenever one can set side time. So my daughter volunteers in town, but also is on the roster at a private service. Either will serve as “conduits” to provide leads to “gigs”.
Day camps/summer camps hire licensed EMTs to act as the “camp nurse”, league sport events might require an EMT attending. Every now and then my daughter staffed a Covid Testing center, or a “pop-up” center to collect samples.
In some towns, in-town volunteers cannot be paid, but they are allowed to pay for out-of-town contractors. As a result EMTs sign up for paid shifts one-town-over instead 
I do. It’s just that sometimes I freeze up to new people and I gradually warm up to them.
Your confidence might be building up naturally over the next few years, as you achieve more and more academically and elsewhere and start seeing yourself (rightfully) as a young, competent adult.
But yes, as a practitioner (whether a Doctor, PA, Nurse-Practitioner, Nurse, or EMT) you typically only spend a short while with a patient. Being able to quickly build some sort of report, gain whatever insight, occasionally deal with challenges - and then move on to the next case - is a crucial ability to hone. Before you know it, you will have a little “repertoire” that will break the ice in the room.
Remember, you’ll be in the advantage over the patient, because you will have done it countless times before, and with the stethoscope, they see you as an “authority”.
You’re never expected to become anyone’s friend - in fact, the first couple of minutes you’ll be quite focused on fact gathering and assessment. Later, and during the transport to the hospital, you’ll find that most patients will instinctively want to be put at ease and therefore will be rather welcoming to even the smallest little gesture.
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Why not? There are many parents who want their adult children to explore, college is the perfect time. Brown is not far from NJ, and there is even a train. Not that much of this matters since we a talking about a high school freshman, all who have a very small chance of getting into Ivy’s anyway. I have friends with a very bright daughter whose mission was to get their daughter into Penn (also from south Jersey, mom worked at Penn as an audiologist so free tuition). They spend $ on the best private school in the area (where they lived private school was necessary anyway). She didn’t get into Penn. I’m sure she felt a lot of pressure those years in high school though.
I just saw this post, so I have a couple of comments that go back to the beginning. For context, my D is preMed at Brown, but not PLME (who knows if she would have gotten in PLME, but she didn’t even apply as she had been interested in a different path originally).
I think it’s great you are thinking about where you want to be and are thinking of how you can make that happen. I urge you to also leave room for yourself to grow organically, and shift and change as different opportunities and experiences come your way, and you discover more of your likes/dislikes.
When I read your original post, I thought you were over-doing it on the academic side and weren’t thinking about the extra-curricular side enough. Ultimately you need to have taken a rigorous enough schedule that your guidance counselor will check the box that you took the most rigorous schedule available to you, but that shouldn’t mean skipping lunch and/or taking summer classes. We aren’t privy to what your school is like, so I don’t know if your HS’s guidance counselor would meet with you (or email with you) to review a proposed schedule and whether that would meet their requirements to be able to check that box. Besides checking that box, you obviously need to be competitive with kids applying from other High Schools. The GC at my D’s HS had told us that she needed to have certain core courses to apply for STEM at a T20. Those courses were: AP Chem, AP Calc AB (BC was better but AB was the baseline), 1 AP history, 1 AP English, and either AP Bio or AP physics. It was highly recommended to take both Bio and Physics, but you didn’t have to do AP for both. Even though it was recommended, though, my D never took physics because she took other science classes instead, and didn’t have time in her schedule. Her HS also emphasized taking a minimum of 3 consecutive years in a foreign language, 4 years English, 4 years in history/economics/sociology etc. in other words, a well rounded HS education. So, I’d strongly recommend to you that you take these core classes and fill in the rest based on your interests and how good the various teachers are at your HS. By the way, my D and her friends came into HS off-track for graduating with calculus, so at my D’s HS it was recommended that my D take geometry over the summer, and some of her friends at a different HS were recommended to take geometry and algebra 2 simultaneously. The math department at your HS should be able to recommend to you what’s the best option at your HS.
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There are people skip lunch in my school to take extra classes, so it’s sort of normal.
I have a lot of medically and non medical extracurriculars planned because I know extracurriculars are also important.
I know the chances of me getting into college are slim. This post was mostly about if I was over stressing myself god the same of getting into a university. I also wanted to know if my courses were on the right path/not worth it.
I also kind of wanted to know some activities that could help show my passion for medicine, creative writing, and law.
I’ll work with on my confidence. Thank you 
The chances of you getting into great colleges are not slim! Getting into T20’s is a reach for every students, there just isn’t enough room for every qualified student. Enjoy high school, looks like you are on a great path.
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I know that. That’s why I have less competitive schools like Howard, Rutgers, Rowan, and Muhlenburg on my list.
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You have great, and very respected, in-state choices - including Rutgers.
And the top private colleges can offer financial aid to cover a student’s financial need - but the admission chance for anyone are 10% and less, regardless how perfect their grades and scores are.
So it’s okay to aim for those, but to plan for others.
Looking at the next tier, highly ranked colleges that are actively seeking to attract the best students, very attractive merit scholarships will be available.
If you can stay focused for the next 3+ years, and get good grades in the classes you plan, you are as likely to go to college as many very others with similar family finances.
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