<p>I know I posted some stats a while ago on this thread but after reading threads, I was just curious to know what my advantages and disadvantages were so I could really focus on improving in the next few years. I am a freshman and am hispanic/black. My main interests/passions are violin, writing, volunteering, and law. Here are my stats so far:
Courses:
Honors English 9 (A)
Honors Geometry (B+)
Honors French 2 (A-)
Honors Biology (A)
Honors World History (A)
Orchestra (A)
Next Year:
Honors English 10
Honors Algebra 2
Honors Chemistry
Honors Modern History/Civics
Honors French 3
Orchestra</p>
<p>Here are the activities I do currently:
Orchestra (6 years at school)
Project Music: Violin (8 and 9th grade so far, after school violin lessons)
President’s Volunteer Service Award (150+ hours)
Volunteer Program at Local Library (49 hours)
Summer Program at local university (For students interested in law)</p>
<p>These are the activities I plan to take next year through 12th:
Mock Trial
Debate Team
Model U. N
School Newspaper </p>
<p>Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>Since you're only a freshman, I'm going to advise you to not kill yourself over college admissions this early in your academic career. I think it's important that you have this in the back of your mind, and definitely take challenging courses and do well, but enjoy your high school years and make them meaningful too. Make sure you pick a select few (1-3) extracurricular activities that are especially meaningful to you and concentrate on them. You need to make yourself stand out in Harvard admissions, and simply listing "Mock Trial, Debate Team, Model U.N., School Newspaper" isn't very meaningful in a pool of 23,000 outstanding applicants. Make sure you accomplish something in your activities to make them stand out. Also, don't be afraid to be creative. Your activities seem somewhat too academic to me. Do something crazy and not at all related to academics to show that you're not just about doing well in school. Good luck.</p>
<p>"Mock Trial
Debate Team
Model U. N
School Newspaper"</p>
<p>Man.. the norm is so ... uggh... I dunno...</p>
<p>Just excel at them</p>
<p>"Mock Trial
Debate Team
Model U. N
School Newspaper "</p>
<p>Not to belittle these activities because I'm sure they're very time consuming, but they look fairly generic on a college app. Since you're only a freshman, keep in mind that different opportunities are going to come up, and you don't want to prevent yourself from having access to these opportunities because of other clubs.</p>
<p>I really recommend that you look into joining your school's student government. I know that student government is seen as a generic e.c. as well, but stud gov opens a lot of opportunities for leadership positions and volunteer experience. Also, it seems like it would complement your current anticipated e.c.'s.</p>
<p>Another piece of advice is take a foreign language for all four years of high school! Too many people choose to quit after [insert foreign lanuage here] II or III. It looks like you've already included French in your course load, so just make sure to keep going with that</p>
<p>I did consider the fact that most students do those ec's and they are pretty much generic so after looking at my school's ec web page I think I might do Mock Trial, newspaper, multicultural book club and have been thinking for a while now, on starting a club of my own at school.</p>