I’m a high school sophomore (C/O 2019) and I’m planning on majoring in Microbiology and Epidemiology. This year, I’ve started to evaluate which extracurriculars I should keep and which ones I should drop. Can i have some feedback on which ones i should keep? My junior classes will be Publications, AP English 3, AP Calc A/B, AP Bio, Spanish 3, and cross country.
So far, I’m co-president of Active Student Efforts community service club, Mock Trial team member (love this club), and first year Science Olympiad team member. I’m also very interested in animals. I’ve applied to volunteer at several hospitals but was rejected. I called an animal hospital and they will accept me after an interview. I’ve spoke to my parents about this and my mom said it is better to reapply at the human hospital and volunteer there instead of the animal hospital. Problem is, I kind of love animals too :(. Will volunteering at the animal hospital affect my college acceptance chances compared to volunteering at a human hospital? I’m also thinking of dropping Science Olympiad because I just don’t like the cutthroat competitions. Will these decisions affect anything? Thanks in advance!
I think that if you are very interested in animals, then you should definitely talk to your mom and see why she may not want you volunteering at the animal hospital. It seems like that aligns more with your interests, plus everyone is volunteering at the hospital, so you wouldn’t stand out at all. Your classes look good, and since you’ll be taking AP Bio, you may want to participate next year in the USA Biology Olympiad. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a very prestigious competition which consists of a series of exams to find the best bio students in the country. So it might be good to begin reading Campbell’s (basically the Bible of bio and probably the textbook that’ll be used in your AP class), maybe over the summer. (Plus, if you do that, you’ll probably get a 5 on the AP exam.) When were you hoping to volunteer at the animal hospital, this summer or later? If not this summer, you may want to look for opportunities this summer, such as internships. Also, what were your events in Science Olympiad? I know you said you don’t really like it, but before you quit, you should consider that they have multiple events related to your area of interest (Microbe Mission, Disease Detectives, etc.). I’m not trying to encourage suffering in your life, but if your interest is in the STEM area, most of the better opportunities are cutthroat competitions.
I was also going to mention YES (Young Epidemiology Scholars), but it appears that it ended in 2011! 
Thank you! Sorry for the late reply, but I secured a volunteer position at Arc Animal Hospital (cleaning kennels, cleaning ground, holding down small pets while the nurse and doc take blood, putting blood samples in the centrifuge, etc.). I also did Microbe Mission in science olympiad. It was pretty scary and I barely knew half of the questions (though I studied a lot). My partner on the other hand, was the club president and basically did everything else :(. So far, I’m planning on keeping my sport, newspaper, volunteer club and mock trial for junior year 
That sounds great! Good luck at the animal hospital. 