<p>I am a junior this year, and I had a few questions about my EC's/Volunteer work that are at the bottom.</p>
<p>Extracurricular activities:
- Club swimming since 5th grade
- On Varsity swim team of local HS since 10th grade (my school doesn't offer swimming)
- Founder and Head/Captain of my school's Speech and Debate team (Varsity; since 9th grade)
- Part of a graduate research group at a local university (since summer of 9th grade)
- JV2 soccer (since 9th grade)
- JV tennis (since 9th grade)
- Science Research
- 2 Research papers published in professional journals (separate topics)
- Research presented at professional conference</p>
<p>Awards/Honors:
- Varsity letter in swimming (10th grade)
- Scholar-athlete (10th grade)
- Various science research awards ranging from school to national level (some had cash)
- Various math awards ranging from school to state level
- Various policy debate awards (won a few competitions, including districts my novice year)
- National AP Scholar</p>
<p>Volunteer work:
- Tutoring/TA at elementary school (once or twice a week for 45 minutes; since 2nd semester 10th grade; will have approx. 75 hrs by the time I apply)
- Assistant MathCounts coach at middle school (since 9th grade; 2 hours per week; will have approx. 144 hrs by the time I apply)
- TA with a freshman orientation course in HS (~40 hours)
Will do:
- Teaching kids at a local Spanish elementary school (1 hour per week; all of 12th grade; speaking Spanish)
- Service Trip to Guatemala (24hrs/day for 10 days; speaking only Spanish)</p>
<p>Work experience:
- 2-week, non-paid research internship at a major health university (summer 10th grade)
- Out-of-state, paid internship (summer 11th grade; will try)</p>
<p>Questions:
Considering that I am shooting for HYPSM,
1) How do my EC's/volunteer work look? How can I improve them?
2) Am I lacking in local community service (I've talked to a few people who said I do)?
3) From the options below, which one should I start doing (I only have time for one)?
- Helping with a computer-based project at a local children's hospital
- Starting a local, bi-lingual tutoring program for low-income students
- Joining my school's InvenTeam, which researches problems in developing countries, and attempts to build solutions to them (the team received a grant from MIT a few years ago)
4) Should I get a job on the weekends?
5) Should I put the 2-week research internship under work experience or volunteer work (it was 126 hours)?</p>