Extracurricular Help

Applying to College
1

I am currently a high school sophomore at the #1 public high school in Ohio. My school is very focused in academics and taking on a rigorous course load, and as a result i have taken the following classes (only including high school credits).

8th grade
Physical Science honors
United States history honors
Algebra 1 Honors
Choir (a high school music credit)

9th grade
English Honors
Geometry Honors
Latin 3
French 1 Honors
Choir
Biology Honors
World History Honors
(Finished the year with a 3.71 unweighted, 4.19 weighted GPA)

and currently in my sophomore year I am taking
AP US History
AP Human Geography
AP Seminar: Capstone
French 2 Honors
English Honors
Chemistry Honors
Pre-Calculus Honors

I will probably take 6 AP courses junior year and 7 senior year.

Outside of academics, I have participated in the Model United Nations (going to the Harvard conference in 2015), a refugee assistance club at my school, and have done competitive Irish dancing for 12 years. I have qualified for the World Championships in Irish dance twice, and have competed both solo and team (2 times each, 4 altogether). Do you think that this is enough for a strong application or should I try to expand my extracurriculars? I am hoping to attend a relatively competitive college and major in Pre-Med studies and Neuroscience.

2

I am exhausted just reading about your ECs. There is no magic number of ECs that qualifies as enough. And why do you need to take that many APs? In general, top colleges are looking for 6-8 APs, not 16. There is no prize for taking the most, and in fact, colleges dont like academic drones, so be careful. I foresee you seriously burning out if you try to keep up this schedule. Do a search for what Stanford has to say about APs and what MIT says about ECs. I am sorry for being blunt, but I am concerned that you might be the classic student who applies to only top 20 colleges because you think you are bound to get into one of them, and then posting on April 1 that you didn’t get in anywhere.

Please remember that grades are paramount. If you take seven and six APs, and continue your obviously intensive dance schedule, how will you maintain high grades? Your grades in ninth grade were good, but not amazing. I think you should ask for a meeting with your GC at school to discuss your schedule for the next couple of years. Do you want to be totally stressed out and have no free time ever? Or do you actually want the occasional hour of mindless TV? At this rate, I can’t see you getting that for a long time to come.