hey all!! i’m not sure this is the right place to put this, but this is my first post so please forgive me if i’ve made a mistake haha
i’m a junior in high school right now - it’s finally fourth quarter! but that’s sort of bad news, considering i feel like i’m running out of time. as i look more into the college application process, i realize that i need some pretty cool extracurriculars, and it’d be nice if they were kind of focused. to an outside viewer, it would be a stretch to call mine focused. i suppose i’ll just list them, then explain.
sports: volleyball freshman year, swim sophomore and junior year, xc junior year.
clubs: spanish club freshman, sophomore, and junior year, gsa junior year, class vp junior year, playwriting junior year.
other: nhs junior year, intensive arabic learning summer camp last summer, volunteer work at the local senior center, recognized at state level for a history project related to public health, assistant on medical relief trip last year.
it’s so weird to see me on paper like that! i plan to do a ton of volunteer work over the summer, not really for college apps, more for my soul, but i guess it’s also helpful for apps.
my ECs seem so scatterbrained. i guess to me, they all make sense, because they make up me as a person and it’s quite clear to me how they connect. they’re all related to the way i connect with the world and the people around me. anyway, do you think it’s too late to salvage the extracurricular side of me? i can write a good essay and my grades are good so this is the thing i’m definitely most worried about. thank u so much to everyone who reads this and especially to those who choose to reply!!
^ was that necessary?
you should definitely start looking at career-focused volunteer opportunities around you. also, what you said about your ec’s being an important aspect and composition of your character is an excellent statement, try to remember that for applications. also, put more effort into career-related clubs at your school. at this point, an internship is almost out of the question, as the school year is almost over and most apps would have been due several months ago, albeit there are always internships available of any kind
Yeah, it was necessary. You won’t get good advice if knowledge posters stop reading because of wall of text type posts.
OP, what type of schools are you looking at?
Also, high school “internships” are rarely more than gopher jobs. HS students don’t know enough to make any substantive contributions. Colleges know this, too. So pushing the HS internship path isn’t very useful.
It really depends on which colleges you are aiming at and what you want to do there. You are fine doing what you love and not getting an Olympic medal for it if you don’t want to play Division 1 sports. Your ECs are fine if your grades and scores are minimally decent and you don’t care about a Prestige Name college with an admissions rate of 2%. There are an awful lot of colleges who don’t care all that much about ECs.
Spend the summer doing an intense college search, identify what you want out of life, maybe do some test prep. You mention playwriting, maybe write more plays and get a start on your application essays. Do things that make you happy and feel useful. Write about those things honestly and positively. You will get into a college where you have the possibility to shine.
ECs are important within the context of the entire application. Make sure your gpa, satisfied requirements and test scores meet academic requirements of the schools to which you plan to apply. If academic criteria for application aren’t met, ECs won’t save you.
You didn’t say what you plan to do through your senior year. Taking time in 9th/10th grade to try different things is good. Demonstrating commitment and leadership in 11th/12th grades is better. You show XC as a junior, which is probably one of the hardest sports to stick with. Any chance as a senior you would continue that and be a varsity scorer and/or captain? It is a fall sport so you would be able to include that on an early applications.
