I’m planning on applying to either Stanford or Harvard REA my senior year which means I only have what’s left of sophomore year and Junior year to build a solid enough application for these schools…My problem is that I feel I haven’t done anything significant or anything worth while listing on my application in terms of extracurriculars (I don’t have any leadership positions or any major acomplishments in anything really) since I’m in a school in a rural area and I’m low income, there isn’t much to do around here in terms of extracurriculars and people here don’t really participate in activities nor do we do anything really significant in clubs. I could only volunteer at places for now. Another reason is I don’t even know what field to go into nor do I even know what my passions or interests are except for maybe soccer. Which leaves me not even knowing what to focus all my time on. AP classes are another hassle since right now I can only take 2 for sophomore year and maybe even 2-3 for next year if my schedule even permits it, I’m also not taking into account that if I make less than a 4, I’ll probably not even submit it making my AP class supply look less. My question is am I running out of time in doing anything good in terms of extracurriculars? I know some people are already doing some significant things since freshmen year, and for Stanford or Harvard I would definitely assume they would want to see commitment to an activity for all four years of high school…
Start with asking yourself this question: why do you want to apply to Stanford or Harvard?