<p>So currently I am a rising sophomore and I want to know if I'm on the right track for HYPSM? Here are my stats...</p>
<p>GPA: 98.75/100
Class Rank: 4/214
AP: US History(taking course this year), World History(took as a freshman), Environmental Science (self-studying), Microeconomics (self-studying)
EC:
National Honor Society (inducted at end of year)
Reading Tutor (American Youth Literacy Foundation)
Youth Commission
Quiz Bowl
National Beta Club (inducted at end of year)
National Science Honor Society (President/Founder)
Biology Olympiad (President/Founder)
Science Olympiad (President/Founder)
French Honor Society (inducted at end of year of year)
Future Business Leaders of America
Technology Student Association
Health Occupations Students of America (President/Founder)
Students In Action/Operation Smile (President/Founder)
AAYO Chamber Orchestra (1st Violin)
Community Band Alto Saxophone (1st part)
District Honor Band Alto Saxophone (3rd Chair)
Tri-M Music Honor Society
All-State Band Alto Saxophone( 4th chair)
Skyelite Jazz Band Alto Saxophone (We won a Grammy Award this year!)
Theatre Pit Orchestra Violin (1st part)
HOBY Ambassador </p>
<p>and yes ALL of my stats are REAL and I am NOT trolling. This is a legit question and I would like legitimate answers. Please only nice and constructive comments please. Do I need to keep or drop anything? Does my GPA or Class rank need to be a little higher? Any comments? Also, I promise I am the president and founder of that many clubs... my school isn't exactly Science oriented and I had the ideas and I got them started as well... I haven't taken any standardized tests (ACT SAT) and my AP World Score I will not be reporting... Lol</p>
<p>Grade-wise you are on the right track. Your EC’s are all-over the board. You need to focus on which are important for you. The are only 10 slots to list EC’s on the common app, but I would argue that after 6-8, the law of diminishing returns will kick in.</p>
<p>Your music ECs look pretty good. Being president of 5 clubs doesn’t look very believable, and it looks like you’re spreading yourself thin. Choose 1 or 2 to focus on at a much deeper level. </p>
<p>Basically you are in school for 6+ hours a day. If you have a challenging schedule, you will have 3-4 hours of homework a night. Colleges know that. So that leaves ~20 hours per week for extracurriculars. Lumping all the music together as your major EC, I’m guessing that between group practices, individual lessons/practice, and performances for 2 instruments, that is at least 10-15 hours a week. So you have all these other EC’s that you can maybe devote 1 hour a week to each. Once you are at that 1 hour/week mark, it’s just résumé padding. </p>
<p>It isn’t a bad thing; it’s just not a particularly good thing.</p>
<p>First of all, joining clubs is one of the most worthless ECs there is. Second, it is all too common for someone to start a club, get elected president, and the club ends up going nowhere. Third, if someone wants to make their club membership(s) a meaningful experience, I’d think they’d want to focus on one or at most two clubs, rather than spreading themselves too thin. </p>
<p>In my opinion, founding five clubs and joining several others comes off as trying too hard to impress.</p>
<p>For a point of reference, my S, a recent Princeton grad, was in NHS (president senior year) but other than that didn’t join any clubs. My D, a rising senior at Duke, was in NHS, and maybe one other club. They both had excellent ECs, but they weren’t serial club joiners.</p>