I’m a freshman in high school (for another month) and need some advice regarding extracurriculars.
Background:
I have a 4.0 UW GPA in all Honors classes and am taking 4 APs next year (Calc AB, Euro, Chem, Physics 1). I took the SAT/ACT in middle school for CTY and qualified for the grand ceremony. Basically, academics aren’t the problem. Currently, I’m working on becoming an Eagle Scout and I do quiz bowl. I’m also going to begin volunteering at my local library over the summer. The issue is I have a lot of free time and basically waste all of my time browsing the internet.
Question:
What other kinds of extracurricular activities should I do? I’m targeting the top 20 schools.
What are you interested in? If you like engineering, check out my post.
Extracurriculars aren’t something to be done if you’re only going to do it to put it on college applications. It’s not fair to the other people in the club/group who are passionate about it. You need to find what you’re interested in and put your time and energy into that. And if there’s nothing at school you want to join right now, then put your time into Boy Scouts and quiz bowl - 1 or 2 extracurriculars you’re really dedicated in look way better than 5-6 extracurriculars you took but didn’t care about.
Haha you’re the first person I’ve met here in cty too! Anyway, you might be able to add an academic decathlon or Olympiad component to your quiz bowl team. You may also want to join a service based club such as key club or student government if you enjoy service. Another fun club is robotics if you’re into that. Depending on your state you could compete in Mesa or vex competitions. It would look pretty good on college applications if you started a club too.