<p>Hello there, I am currently in junior year of high school. I post today because I am worried about it being too late to start on extra curricular activities. I go to a selective enrollment high school with over 4,000 students and am in the top 10% of my graduating class. I have not taken the ACT's yet, but I will soon. I have already taken ACT prep classes.
The only valuable information I have so far for a college application is that I have a 3.8 unweighted GPA and a 4.8 weighted GPA and have taken 6 AP classes, 3 sophomore year and 3 this year. These include AP english, AP spanish, AP chemistry, AP human geography, AP psychology and AP spanish literature. I did cross country and track sophomore year, but I was not able to do it this year due to a busy school schedule, which was very hard for me since I LOVE running. This year I joined the chemistry club, but we barely meet up. I also joined the math team, but am not that passionate about it. I am really starting to worry about not getting into either one of the two colleges I want (University of Chicago or Northwestern). I have 150 service learning hours I did in a school program (110 of these hours were done before high school). I also have more credits than the usual student, since I went to an academic center (which unfortunately is the cause I have a 3.8 instead of a 3.94 GPA). If it helps, I am Hispanic and will be the first of my family to go to college IF I can get a scholarship and accepted into a good college. I have grown up in a bad neighborhood and my parents don't earn a lot of money (<20,000 a year). Is it possible for me to get into a good college and get a scholarship? Is it too late to find something I'm passionate about, even if there's only 4 months of junior year left? I hope there is still a chance. :( thanks to everyone who reads/gives advice! </p>
<p>I also take art classes outside of school if that helps! I started beginning of junior year. Can’t believe I forgot to mention that! oops :o </p>
<p>You are a great student. Keep up the good work. You sound like an amazing candidate for the Questbridge program. They partner with top schools and will give you all the financial backing you need. I don’t Both UChicago and Northwestern are included on the questbridge partners list among many other top schools. Best of luck. <a href=“http://www.questbridge.org/”>http://www.questbridge.org/</a></p>
<p>@shk909 do you think that I can make it into their program with such little EC’s? I do have ideas for what to do for these EC activities, like help the children in my community who need help with their homework. I hope to go to the schools who need mentors, help kids with their homework who really need it, and even eventually start programs that they lack like music, sports, and science and math (using my knowledge that I have to offer since I run, play guitar, and am passionate about math and chemistry). Helping the kids in similar situations like me is extremely important because 10 years from now they might be stuck in similar situations or even worse, they might have not gotten the attention they needed in grade school to go to a good high school and prepare. What I want to do is help them and hopefully inspire them so they know that they can achieve. I also want to inform their parents, a lot of them only speaking spanish (like my own parents) which makes it hard to know about Advanced programs and Selective enrollment high schools. </p>
<p>I’m not sure if this is out of my reach to do or if it is too late for me to do since I will finish junior year in 4 months. Will it look like I am doing this only for it to look good on my college apps? Because I really am not, I truly want to help these students and their parents. I am hoping to start helping them this week, regardless if it will help on my college apps. I was just wondering if they will be suspicious if I include it in my applications since I am barely starting and if I should include it at all.</p>
<p>Thank you so much in advance! I’m going to talk to my counselor about questbridge this week too since I got a letter from the program last week. </p>
<p>@tal331 I think that if you truly want to improve your ECs its never too late to start. Also look into habitat for humanity teen programs, you could do that over the summer. Apply for scholarship for that and you won’t have to pay for lodging for yourself. You must act fast on that one, it may already be full. </p>
<p>You sound like an ideal candidate for Questbridge so do apply :)</p>
<p>Second: your idea is very good, but it’d be better if you created a group of students willing to go along with you, helping the kids - check to see if there’s not already a boys&girls club that does such a thing, though. The ability to bring classmates, establish a schedule, coordinate between administrations, all of this would be a great EC. (As for college, you should be sure to explain how you plan that program to continue after you leave, and how you plan on being involved in something similar while in college).
Going to the elementary schools to speak - in Spanish? - with the parents is a good idea. Making presentations to the junior high kids too (you’d need props and friends). However make sure to coordinate with the administration and the parents’ association. You don’t want to go there as a know-it-all, more as a resource. It’s a delicate balance.</p>
<p>Finally, if you love running, get back to training and conditioning, run over the summer, and get back on the team :)</p>