<p>Wasn’t sure where to post this. I lurk around a lot, but this is one thing that I’ve never been sure of :(. I suppose my question mostly pertains to community service/jobs and whatnot :S.</p>
<p>I’m currently a sophomore, going into junior year for 09-10.</p>
<p>Will post question, and then give info on my situation.</p>
<p>Dream school is MIT. Fat chance, but I’d apply anyway. I’d like to go to JHU if that’s not the case, though. Washington University in St. Louis, Georgetown, or BU follows up next. Kinda high expectations, eh?</p>
<p>So the question is:
- How heavily do colleges <em>really</em> look at GPA and ECs? If a school is competitive, would a college be more lenient about your GPA, even if your course load is only mediocre?
- What counts as “passion”? Is it really so bad to be in a bunch of different ECs, but not for a long time?
- Are community service/jobs reaaallyyy that necessary? D:
- Do colleges “compare” you with other students in the same school as you? There are many top students at my school that are far better than me in terms of ECs and academics. Would this severely hamper my chances?
- If your high school was really great… how badly do they look down on you if you didn’t… “make the most of your opportunities”?***</p>
<p>I’ll list an overview of my situation, and then go into detail. You don’t have to read the details unless you’d like to provide me with in-depth feed back but y’know… <em>nudgenudge</em> ;)</p>
<p>SUMMARY:
- I go to a very competitive and large high school (2,000+ people). Academically and athletically rigorous. 10%+ of the graduating class consistently go to Ivy League each year. Bottom line is, good school. Lack of sleep, cheating, and using drugs to excel are very frequent here, though. I don’t cheat, get 8+ hours of sleep each night, and don’t use drugs to boost concentration on studies. I keep thinking that I’m at a disadvantages to all the psycho overachievers in this respect. Is this something you can mention on an app in an interview, or just something you have to get over?
- Freshman year: great courseload, but was very lazy. Rejected from all AP classes for soph year… twice. JV Volleyball, but no ECs otherwise.
- Soph year: Worked hard(er), now have the hardest courseload possible for Junior year and is confident that I can handle it… sorta d: Copy writer and Co-Editor for Photography, Policy Debate (varsity next year, semifinalist in state championship, NE Championship participant, invited to Harvard Invitational), Varsity team for Science Olympiad (placed 2nd in state championships)
- Only some 25 odd hours of community service, while hordes of kids here have 100+ hours.
- Fortunately, we don’t rank. I’d probably be just barely in the top 25% otherwise.
- I think I could somewhat compete on the basis of SAT? As a sophomore, my CR/M is an even 1400, but I studied quite a bit. Couple hours each day for two weeks right before school started.
- I am self-studying for AP Biology and AP World History. I expect to have taken 7-ish AP tests by the end of junior year. I also anticipate scoring in the mid-700s+ for various SAT II tests (incl. Bio, French, Chem, Lit, all my core classes, basically)
- GPA is… sub-par at best. 3.65 weighted in freshman year. Sophomore year, all straight A- or A for the first semester. Third quarter (first half of 2nd semester): two B-'s, three B’s, three A-/A’s this quarter when I caved and went back to gaming for a month, before quitting again)
- I think I could get pretty good recommendations. I like all my teachers, am active in discussions and always humorous with my teachers. I’ve never had a teacher I’ve disliked so far, and hope to keep it that way.</p>
<p>So… indepth. Feel free to skip this part.
I was pretty much addicted to online gaming for the last 8 years (I was pretty computer-literate from a young age, 7 or 8 :D) and didn’t really have… any ECs freshman year (except for JV volleyball). Kind of a shame. I was a fairly good player too, but nothing “national” noteworthy XD. I don’t suppose that’s an excuse you could make to your interviewer or note on an application?</p>
<p>Middle school was easy, so I ended up getting into the top classes for freshman year. But the thing is - I go to a very competitive public high school in a wealthy suburban town, so the academic courseload is pretty rigorous. I finished the year with a 3.65 weighted GPA (Not sure what my unweighted GPA is, but I would assume something in the 3.2 range, as all of my final grades were B’s. I got A’s on all my final exams, so that really brought my grade up), but didn’t get into any honors classes apart from Math and French. </p>
<p>However, I forced myself to quit gaming (not an easy task, people :(), and put serious work into my academics. As a result, I’m taking all APs/Honors as a junior. I am also simultaneously studying for AP Biology and AP World History, which are the AP courses offered to sophomores (although, we’re not really a “wealthy” family, so my parents can’t pay for my test fees until next year, but my family isn’t “poor enough” to receive fee waivers either).</p>
<p>Onto ECs. Here at my school, we have a lot of geniuses and stars, and it’s always the “best and brightest” who garner playing time in sports or compete in competitions (understandable, of course), and I’ve been fortunate enough to at least have <em>some</em> ECs for sophomore year, but it’s a far cry from the kind of ECs that other students here have.</p>
<p>So this is what I have so far (all joined in 10th grade): </p>
<ul>
<li>Spent the summer abroad, so I couldn’t try out for a sports team. I was on good terms with the varsity vball coach though, so she let me “manage” the team (mostly score games, actually. Didn’t do much, really.) Can I just still put “Team Manager” on an app? :D</li>
</ul>
<li><p>Yearbook, as a copy writer (basically write a ton of articles, take pictures, design pages). I kind of felt left out, to be honest, since I really didn’t do much at all later into the year after the first semester. However, I am also co-editor for photography, which is kinda BS, since I didn’t do anything at all and I was just offered the position by one of the editors-in-chief who saw that I took good pictures. Is this something you could put on an application or would it just kind of be… exaggerating? I don’t know if I’ll continue this next year. I seriously do love the work that is done here, but I really felt left out and I had nothing to do </p></li>
<li><p>Policy Debate. I’m going into Varsity Policy Debate next year, and am going to a 5-week summer camp for it. Haven’t really gotten many awards for it, either. Semi-finalist in the state championships, “invited” to Harvard Invitational tournament (but y’see, it’s schools that get invited, not specific people and my coach just happened to send me), Northeast Championship, and 15th speaker at this tournament at another high school that I am reluctant to name for privacy reasons :P. I really don’t stand out on this team though, since we have numerous people here who are among the best debaters in the country, while I struggle to compete at the state level.</p></li>
<li><p>Science Olympiad. Now this is a toughie. I was on the varsity squad (I was really fortunate and consider myself extremely lucky. I just happened to like the subjects and studied extra hard to make the teams) for Forensics, Health Science, and Engineering. We placed 5th, 5th, and 2nd (all out of some 20 schools), respectively in the local science league, and cumulatively, we placed 2nd in the state tournament. Sadly, failed to advance to nationals despite us getting more gold medals than the 1st place team. However, I didn’t attend the state tournament because I was at the Northeast Championships at the time (I regret this decision however, since I didn’t do as well at the NE Champs, and know that I could have done so much better at the SO Tourney). Should I still list state champs - 2nd on an application if I helped prepare, but didn’t directly compete in the state? Or should I just list local achievements?</p></li>
<li><p>Community service is required here, but I barely do anything. I have some 25 hours accumulated, but that’s just help running and volunteering for debate tournaments, and some scattered environmental work throughout the year. I know many who have jobs, community service hours in the hundreds, etc. I’m pretty much a far cry from some of the better students.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>That’s pretty much all my ECs, really. I don’t have many awards like so and so, and 1 year doesn’t seem like much “PASSION PASSION PASSION,” even if I DO love these ECs.</p>
<p>Parents are both immigrants to the USA, and first generation college students. However, they both worked hard when young and now have good jobs (one researches at Harvard, another teaches at NEU). Idk if this has any weight, though. Just tossing that out there.</p>
<p>Skipped a grade when I was young, but that’s not very noteworthy since it was in grade school and hardly counts. Or does it? 0_o.</p>
<p>And one last note. I was severely hearing impaired at birth and wear a hearing aid in one ear, as my hearing in the other ear is too severely damaged for a hearing aid. Does this make any impact to adcoms? I’m pretty much praying that colleges will just be nicer to me because of this but that’s just wishful thinking… :D</p>
<p>I guess… I could have turned out to be a better student if I hadn’t been so addicted to gaming for the last eight years. While I do regret not quitting earlier, I learned a lot from it, and about people. I regularly interacted internationally and that has really made me an open and more confident person, since I was painfully shy before I discovered the internet.</p>
<p>This turned out to be a WAYYY longer post than I intended it to be. Kudos to those who actually read the entire thing O__O. </p>
<p>Brutally honest responses are great. I want a realistic perspective on what I’m lacking and my predicament. If I should start shooting lower?</p>