I am in a situation that gives me limited options and I am not sure what to do. My single mom works M-F at her day job and doesn’t get off work until 4 pm. She teaches an evening class on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. On Tuesday and Friday, she doesn’t get home until around 6-7 pm because she works about 1 hr and a half away from the house. My sister is 7 and cannot watch herself self so I HAVE to be at the bus stop to get her off and watch her at home until my mom comes home. We don’t have any family friends and our neighbors aren’t friendly. All the clubs at my school only have afternoon meetings from 3-4 pm and I have tried to join them with hopes that they will update me or have morning meetings but it doesn’t ever work out. The same issue goes with sports (they have afternoon practices that I can’t attend). I try to do as much community service as I can be I always fall short because my mom has fixed events scheduled on certain weekends. I currently do tennis every other Saturday and tumbling practice on Sunday afternoons. Last year, I was in a leadership program with the United Way. I know I need more extracurriculars but I don’t know what to do or how I can do it. Please help! I am scared that I won’t get into an out of state college if I cant show well-roundedness!
Babysitting is a well respected ec. It shows leadership, dedication and commitment. That combined with tennis, tumbling, and occasional community service are decent ecs. Combine that with decent grades, test scores, and recommendations I think you’ll have no trouble getting into many colleges. You can mention it on the college app under other and colleges will understand.
Colleges understand if you aren’t able to join a million clubs due to family circumstances. If you’re doing well academically then you’ll be fine under a holistic admissions process.
I agree with the other responses. You do have some community service hours and tumbling, tennis, and the leadership program as extracurriculars so you should be fine, as long as you have good grades and good SAT/ACT scores. Good luck!
Universities understand that we are not all well off suburbanites with two parents and a nanny to look after younger siblings. Looking after your younger sister is a significant responsibility and counts as an EC. You have shown a lot of responsibility at a young age. This will count a lot when it comes time to apply to colleges and universities.
Keep your grades up, pay attention to the affordability of various schools, and I think that you will do well.
I thought you previously wrote you had some clubs, were picking a title. You talked about debate. And that you write. We gave some advice, don’t think you posted back. Did you ever speak with the GC?
Aren’t you a junior now?
The leader program is good. So are the side sports. What is the community service? Some types are very valued. Colleges look for the overall involvement over time, what you do, not some number of service hours like high schools do.
Nor do we know what colleges and your stats, to form an opinion. Just saying out of state doesn’t tell much.
If you want highly competitive, you would need to focus on what you CAN do. Other colleges will be more lenient. Most of them.
For top colleges, babysitting can explain why quantity is low. But it doesn’t replace having some ECs with peers, where you stretch and have some impact, try new things. But kids can still focus on the most important or a few that show balance.
What have you tried, to help with this?