I’m a junior in the Bay Area who has absolutely nothing planned for the summer. I don’t have any extracurriculars of note (major club president, research, entrepreneurship, job, etc.), and I was wondering what on Earth I could do that would help me, since I’m feeling a little discouraged after looking through summer program threads. Senior year isn’t that far away, so I don’t want to spend time kicking myself for not being motivated as an underclassman.
Here’s what I have going for me:
Unweighted GPA: 4.0 (3.97 by UC system)
Weighted GPA: 4.32
EC: USABO semifinalist
~50 hours of community service
No ACT yet (I’m not taking the SAT)
Any recommendations?
Get a job, volunteer. There are summer programs still accepting apps if your family can afford them (but you certainly don’t need to do that). Get involved with a political effort (candidate or ballot initiative).
What sort of summer program would I have a shot at? I think something like COSMOs might be out of my reach, for example, and I have no idea about local university internships or anything like that. I’m asking about summer programs because I’m pretty clueless about finding jobs or volunteering opportunities which don’t seem like filler (most of my volunteering is for CSF, not independent effort).
Some seniors that I’m acquaintances with tell me that I should focus on biology more, since my other areas are fairly undeveloped.
What is your planned major? You might go to the summer program thread on CC and take a look through some of the threads. The year my kid was a junior, she applied to 6 or 7 programs. Most happened to be bio or medical related. She only got into a couple, ended up going to Operation Catapult at Rose-Hulman (3 week engineering program).
You gotta get off your duff to go find opportunities. No one is going to spoon feed you finding a volunteer opportunity, for example. I bet if you Google there are organizations that match volunteers in your area. Or just think about what causes are important to you (food security? libraries? elder care? politics? animals?) and look at the websites of local organizations. Jobs can be a little challenging to find for juniors (my kid struggled because a LOT of places wouldn’t hire kids younger than 18), but sometimes small businesses will.
Stop worrying about how it will look on applications. Find things YOU care about and look for opportunities to help out. Going to be 100% honest – if you don’t have more ECs than you listed, there is little you can do at this point that will catapult you to the EC level that the very tippy top colleges want. So… get out and do what interests you. Colleges want interested and interesting applicants. Pursue what you care about.
Thanks for your attention ?
I’ve had a lot of “do what interests you” launched at me recently, but it’s another thing to see it on College Confidential and not from somebody who doesn’t want to spell out doom and gloom for me yet.
This place has a bit of a harsh reputation among my peers.
Again, thanks for the advice.
By the way… I’m a little curious about what you mean by “tippy-top”. I’m not looking at the likes of UCal; UC Irvine and UC Davis seem more approachable to me. I’m mostly applying to the UCs since I’d rather stay in-state for undergraduate studies.
Get a job.
I’m a huge proponent of kids having a part time job!!
As a teacher, it’s my job to pull the best I can out of you. As an employee, it’s your job to pull the best you can out of yourself. Having a job prepares you for life far better than the vast majority of internships and programs
Agree that getting a job or adding a volunteer EC in something you really care about is a good choice.