Come back and tell us when you get your latest SAT score. It’s hard to advise you without it.
okay
Looks like you’re both asking for advice and trying to pick holes in each of the suggestions given.
Remember, we’re people on the internet who do not know you or your family dynamic, so it’s difficult to provide your perfect solution…
In my opinion (as someone who doesn’t know you or your real tone of voice – just like an admission person) an essay about doing nothing and having too much integrity to do something simply to pad your EC resume, is not a wise choice. You’d likely come off as negative and uninspired. Generally not the type of student who will add to a college community, which as someone above mentioned, is what the people reading your application will be looking for.
Use your imagination. Not all EC’s need to be through organized groups.
Sure, it may take up some of your time, but if the schools you’re targeting take EC’s into consideration, then it will be worth it. Have fun. Find your own way. Life is too short to be consumed by family drama.
I’m curious. What is reconaissance for schoolwork?
I think you’re best off with schools that don’t consider EC’s.
At a school that does consider them, it seems to me your choices are
A. Don’t address the complete lack of EC’s in your essay. I’d expect the Admissions Committee to easily reject you. Why should they consider you when there are plenty of applicants with equivalent grades and scores AND who have done interesting things?
B. Address the lack in your essay. So far, you haven’t offered really compelling reasons why you don’t do anything. I’m sorry to say, you come off as a person with no interests, which doesn’t make you seem like an interesting person to have on campus. There’s really nothing in or out of school that you found even vaguely interesting?
How would your teachers know what kind of leadership and social skills you have? Where would they have seen you in action? Is there something there to work with?
What, exactly, is grade forgiveness? Will the classes whose grades have been forgiven appear on your transcript? If they do, I imagine it’s likely that when admissions committees calculate your GPA for themselves, as many do, they’ll include all your academic grades.
Honestly, I feel like there are lots of students who don’t play sports/volunteer/join clubs in high school. I don’t think the fact that he has no interest in doing the typical EC’s makes the OP an “uninteresting” person. Since it looks like he isn’t trying to apply to some type of reach school or an Ivy, his GPA, SAT score, a decent essay + letter of Recommendation will be fine for him.
Just curious, do you plan on doing extracurricular activities once you are in college?
What do you like to do when you’re able to? Can you stay at school later than the end of class, and participate in something there?
From an admission standpoint, would it look strange if the OP has done no EC’s throughout high school and suddenly he starts participating in EC’s senior year? Wouldn’t it give the appearance that he only started joining activities for the purpose of padding his resume?
Op can look for things to-do at home or at school and make sure his/her guidance counselor mentions that absence of Ec’s is due ‘to a difficult family situation’.