<p>I am worried that my daughter is compromising her high school transcript/course rigor with her ridiculous desire to help people. (I know it's good that she wants to volunteer - but please let's not debate this now).</p>
<p>Here's my question - My daughter wants to do this late arrival (1.5 hrs/day) to high school every morning so she can volunteer. ALSO she wants to schedule a Teacher Assistant/Community Service block (1.5 hrs/day) so she can tutor elementary students in ESL (English second Language) AND she wants to schedule a course called Service Learning where she will volunteer at a school approved agency. The Service Learning course description states that "the classroom expectations will continue to be supported by a rigorous social issues curriculum". These would all be taking place during her junior and senior years.</p>
<p>I think this is all a bit much. However, she will be going into a career field which involves helping people (pharmacy or nursing).</p>
<p>Is all of this volunteering too much? Will colleges think she is trying to pad her application? To be honest she could care less about padding her app. She says that a school that is a good fit for her will accept her for who she is and she will not be fake to get into a school.</p>
<p>A bit of background also:
She has a 4.00 GPA UW, Top 10% of class
She scored in the 99% on Pre-ACT and is predicted to score a 32-36 on real ACT
BAD - She only will have 4 AP classes (she says she won't take an AP class in something that she could care less about!)
Fluent in reading, writing, speaking Spanish
Many varsity sports and other leadership EC's
Will be NHS</p>
<p>So what you’re saying is that the single thing that is not absolutely perfect on your daughter’s application is that she’s taking “only” 4 AP classes?</p>
<p>I think that CC has me paranoid about “course rigor”! LOL! That may be the single thing lacking on her app. BUT at the same time CCers say it can be the most important.</p>
<p>I just don’t want her to be lacking the AP’s (course rigor) and then have all these easy volunteer hours and look like a slacker! She’s smart and not lazy but may appear to be lazy - that’s my BIG concern.</p>
<p>Biggest concern - she is going to have to get some merit aid and I don’t want this to be the ruin of her chances of that.</p>
<p>Oh, don’t worry about that. What little merit aid is given out (unfortunately, not much) is often HEAVILY based on extracurricular achievements.</p>
<p>The only worry that comes with “too much volunteering” is if it starts to negatively impact her academics, which from the looks of it, it has not at all. Course rigor barely matters, and 4 APs are enough. Let her do what she wants to do with her life, if she loves to volunteer then great.</p>
<p>I’m not so sure course rigor “barely matters”. But from my experience, people do not tend to take more AP classes than they want to just because they have the time available.</p>
<p>Thanks so much everyone for the insight! I hope it all works out in the end. Hopefully D is right and the colleges that are a true fit for her will accept her for who she is! She absolutely will not take an AP class that doesn’t interest her. So she has AP Spanish, Language, Bio and maybe Stats (or Chem). She already took a couple of honors classes too (Bio and Chem), so hopefully that will help too. Hopefully the adcoms will see her pattern of what she likes - Spanish, English, Bio, Chem. At least these coincide with what she wants to major in! Also, our school only offers 12 AP’s and D says they are all the boring ones! No psych, enviro or anything like that. Fingers crossed! :)</p>
<p>Great that you let her follow her interest! </p>
<p>You can be very happy to have a daughter who seems to have found her true passion so early. And what a good passion it is! Much more than anything, top colleges search to recruit people who truly excell in their field and who are mature, responsible individuals. Even if this might cost you a single acceptance (like you’d have to choose Chicago over Columbia - which it will NOT), your daughter will have learnt so much more and will have had a much greater HS experience.</p>