First semester just finished, and I managed all A’s, two honors classes. Currently I’m involved in Speech and Debate, Japanese Club, Metropolitan Youth Symphony (this will change this summer to a quartet), and my school Golf team in the spring. I’ve entered some poetry to the national library of poetry competition, and three to the New Yorker (for now I’m just seeing what will happen). I’ve volunteered with the BeGlobal foundation, helping foreign exchange students as a conversation buddy for five days, and I need some input on building my extracurricular activities.
I can only start hospital volunteering once I turn sixteen, because hospitals in my areas consider anything younger a distinct liability. There’s a research internship I plan on applying to, but it’s extremely competitive, so I’m not entirely confident in that. I’m also debating on asking my family physician if I can shadow her on weekends. If my planned forecasting for high school works out, I’ll have thirteen AP classes (very scary to me, but I will do this even if it kills me). I’m planning on joining NHS, HOSA, and starting a poetry club with monthly submissions to literary journals next year.
Here is my forecasting plan for the next three years:
10th Grade: Adv. Algebra 2, AP Chemistry, AP Biology, English 10, AP US History, Japanese 2, Racquet (spelling looks strange, but it’s how they did it) Sports and Health 2.
11th Grade: Pre- Calculus, Biotechnology, Planetary Science, Human Anatomy and Physiology, AP English Literature, AP Human Geography (or AP European History), and Japanese 3.
12th Grade: AP Calculus AB, AP Environmental Science, AP English Language, AP Government, AP Psychology, and AP Japanese.
My end goal is the Penn State/ Jefferson program, and from what I’ve seen, it’s terrifyingly competitive. What I’m looking for is advice, criticism, am I being unrealistic? How should I prepare for the new SAT’s? ACT’s? Will starting a club look good (I’ll do it anyway; I love poetry)? What unweighted GPA should I try to stay above (I’m always aiming for a 4.0, but peace of mind over any mistakes is always appreciated)? What extracurricular activities should I add? What ones aren’t as important?
Sincerely,
A stressed high school student