<p>I am currently a junior. I don't want to go to any Ivys, but I'm going to apply to some pretty selective liberal arts colleges (Davidson, Washington and Lee, Hamilton, Carleton). Those are my reaches, I also have other safetys and matches. My GPA is 3.98 weighted at a high ranking private school in CA and I take the maximum amount of honors/APs allowed to me each year. My big problem is that I don't have a lot of ECs! I go to boarding school in the middle of nowhere, with very few opportunities to get off campus and volunteer.</p>
<p>I've gone on all the trips to the homless shelter (1) and animal shelter available (5). I helped out with student council in organizing food drives, but my friends that let me help out are graduating. Typically, only seniors are allowed to be on student council, with the exception of class officers. The president of student council chooses who can join, and he would not let me because he particularly dislikes me because we got into a very large argument last year about him planning on cheating during a final and me telling him not to. So there goes my opportunities to volunteer during the school year. I'm still going to help out with StuCo events, but I'm not officially on StuCo.</p>
<p>My big thing is swimming. However, I'm not very good at it (can't even swim at a DIII school most likely). I'm super dedicated; I got team captain, have been on varsity all four years, swim with my club team during the summer (20+ hours of practice a week), am a coach on the team at home teaching kids to swim (30 or so hours a week), have to help organize events for the kids on the team at home, etc. I don't know if this is good because although I'm really dedicated, I'm not actually good at swimming and wouldn't be able to swim at school.</p>
<p>I also play field hockey. It's mostly for fun, so I've been on JV for two years and will be on varsity next year. </p>
<p>At home, I also live in a rural place near a city so during the summer I don't have many opportunities to volunteer, unless I can get my mom to drive me which is hard because she works 6 days a week. My swim practices/work also take up all the time I have except for Saturday nights and Sundays, which makes volunteering difficult. I've been going to the homeless shelter on the Sundays that I could convince my mom to take me, but that's only been maybe 7 or 8 times. </p>
<p>I'm just wondering how I can write all of this on my app! How do I write that I'm not on StuCo, but help out? How do I write that I was chosen to be co-leader of the environmental awareness club, but haven't been able to do anything this year (because of reasons that would take super long to explain) and will try next year when I'm a senior? Can you think of anything else that I can do? My school is super weird and I wouldn't be allowed to organize any school wide events/drives without being on StuCo, so I don't know what I can do.</p>