This is my first post. I'm sort of asking for advice here or looking for other people to affirm what I think is true. So I'm going to be a senior in high school this upcoming school year. First I'll go over my academic standing. I'm ranked in the top 5 of my class out of the 100 students in my grade so I have first honors and I'm in the NHS and the French NHS. My SAT (the last time I took it was in June) score is okay but not nearly as good as most of the people I see on here. I don't really wanna say it but it's in the lower 1400's. On my ACT's I got a 29 and I'm thinking about retaking it. And I'm also planning on taking two or three SAT Subject Tets ( math, Chem, and French). My AP scores from AP Chem and AP English Lang aren't anything impressive so I want to take subject tests to sort of make up for it lol Also, the classes I'm taking my senior year are challenging enough. Im not as worried about my grades as I am about my EC's.
My huge problem is that throughout my high school career I made the mistake of not exploring what I liked doing and not sticking to hobbies I did in middle school or not starting new ones. I really was not thinking ahead back then. I should have found my interests and done activities related to them. Throughout highschool I was in a few clubs but I was never a leader. I've done community service here there. Outside of school I really didn't do a lot in terms of projects, hobbies, etc. Why ?
Well one reason is transportation - finding out ways to get around was always a headache for me but now that I have my license and am hopefully getting a car soon that will be fixed. Now the big one. I think what stopped from really putting myself out there was my anxiety and depression. The anxiety/depression is mostly due to family problems. My anxiety convinces me that whatever new thing I'm thinking of doing is a terrible idea and I'll come with a list of reasons (not good ones) why. The hours of inactivity I've experienced is due to my depression. General lack of motivation. Also new social ventures sometimes scare the heck out of me. And I really didn't do well in social settings. *I* stopped myself a lot of the time. Ahh this sounds like a sob story now but I just wanted to explain my self.
What I do have is: winter track for 2 yrs, spring track for 1. I did volleyball in freshman year which is not even worth mentioning
It seems like the whole other half of what I wrote got cut off, I’m new can anyone explain why that happened.
Hi,
So you should start searching schools. There are several good schools that value grades more while other schools view ECs heavily. You should try to find out the schools that want GPAs which you will have a higher probability of getting admitted. I don’t know much about this in United States as I have plenty of ECs (well, but I don’t do sports, GG). But in my knowledge, all Canadian schools are like this.
So this is what you can do now:
- Get better SAT or ACT grades.
- Write a VERY good essay
- Get your teacher’s recommendation (does your teacher like you a lot)
The things above can value as much as ECs, especially your essay and recommendation.
A lot of schools accept you based on test scores and grades and not so much on ECs.
@ChemIsHard @CheddarcheeseMN
Thanks for replying. I guess my focus should be on the schools that view grades as their biggest criteria
Original post continued
I’m a peer leader. School service days/trips that i really enjoyed. Oh! And I went to RYLA weekend this summer. I joined the math club this past school year. I tutored kids twice a week for in the last school year. Also I’m a peer leader. Throughout high school I was in the digital publication club on and off. That’s pretty much it.
With the rest of the time I have this summer I’m planning on getting into my hobbies more: coding, editing videos (YouTube), speaking, piano, and cooking. I’m working on my writing so that I could start my blog and hopefully submit my work into a small cultural magazine. This summer I’ve been volunteering at the library and I joined the teen advisory board. We plan programs for the library. When school starts up I want to start a new club because I feel like my school is lacking in that area. I wanna ask about starting a digital magazine(newspaper) or revive the inactive forensic/speaking club.
If you're still reading you deserve a cookie lol The whole point of all of this is that I just wanna know if my last minute efforts will make any difference. This isn't resume padding because I'm trying to make up for lost time by doing things I actually like. But I know there will still be some people who think I have the wrong intentions. What I've done does not compare to kids who have "cured diseases at 10 year olds". I just mean to say that my application is gonna be in the same pool as kids who have almost reached mastery in an instrument or someone who has won competitions on the national/international level or a kid who started a really cool charity. I just don't measure up. I think I'm good for my state schools but I don't think I have any chance at the top schools I was thinking of. But what about schools like NYU or Boston University ? Thanks for reading!
I think it may have some effect, but not very effective. I don’t recommend doing so. Most admission officers will understand this is a “last minute effort” (they had already experienced thousands and billions of applications) which will make it almost useless (Unless you can convince them their not and you did them due to interest).
Go to the BU and the NYU thread. Then, you will find people who already got accepted reporting their scores (or ECs). You will get an idea there (but you probably need to find for a while as admission already passed for a long period of time).
Link of BU thread:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/boston-university//p1