Really worried about ECs? Still don't know what I want to major in?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

I’m scared that my ECs aren’t STEM focused enough, and that I started them too late. I moved schools after 10th grade, and the new one has a lot more opportunities that I tried to take advantage of. Because of this, there’s a really “suspicious”? surge of ECs in 11th grade… I’ve split everything up by school if that helps/makes a difference.

US permanent resident
Asian female
1550 SAT, planning on taking again to get 1580+ (previous scores: 1440, 1470)
800 Math II
710 Chem
1480 PSAT
Planning to take ACT, and based on previous experience/SAT I think I’ll get 35+?

9th & 10th:
Large, relatively competitive HS in TX
3.8125 UW
9th: 5 on AP Human Geography
10th: 5 on AP Calc BC, 4 on AP Chem, 3 on AP World History
top 10% of class
ECs:
2nd top Orchestra (9th)
Really unimpressive math UIL awards
Conducted 2 bioinformatics research projects under an out-of-state professor, one paper is under review for publishing in a large journal, still finishing the second

11th & 12th:
Smaller, competitive STEAM focused “early college residential program mentored by university faculty” HS in TX
4.0 UW
no APs, no ranks
college courses:
1st semester: Honors Chemistry I, Biology, Calculus I, English
2nd semester: Honors Chemistry II, Calculus II, English, Applied Statistics
Planned 3rd semester: Physics I, Computer Science I, Microeconomics, English, US History
ECs:
Awarded $4000 scholarship to conduct biology research at university summer 2018
3rd in regional science fair with ^research, competing in state next month
Coordinator of a student-led fundraiser & drive focused 501©(3) nonprofit, ~50 recorded hours & countless more, planned multiple drives & fundraisers, collaborated with many businesses (boba, bread, etc)
Coordinator of university-wide Carter blood drive
Co-founder of entrepreneurship business that will benefit fellow students, won 1st in Collegiate Texas State DECA event, competing at ICDC next month (no details bc confidential)
Co-founder of journalism website that will benefit fellow students & rest of community (no details bc also confidential lmao)
Tutor under a 501©(3) nonprofit tutoring organizaiton
Contributor to a 501©(3) nonprofit STEM focused organization
Started working 18 hrs a week at a local boba store (need $$)
~100 total recorded volunteer hours
Will be conducting bioinformatics research at a “prestigious”? out-of state university summer 2019, and plan to publish findings in a pretty nice journal (have been working on this project for a while lol)
Hoping to receive the $4000 scholarship again (T_T need the $$)

I’ll major in biostats & go premed if I decide I don’t like microecon & CS
I’ll major in something business/CS if I really enjoy microecon & CS

Haven’t decided between Yale, NYU Stern, UPenn, Stanford, UCLA, UCSB etc yet… had a rly big revelation abt majors over winter break lol. Do you think I could get into any of these?

2

NYU Stern is a high match-grades/scores are definitely there but it’s really competitive. Penn, Stanford, and Yale are reaches even with your grades, but that’s the case for everybody.

Are you a UT auto-admit?

No need to take SAT if you have a 1550. And taking an SAT for the 3rd time isn’t necessarily a good idea.

What about Rice as a possible option?

UCs are going to be expensive for OOS at 65,000 without merit/financial aid.

3

@Hamurtle My school is specifically excluded from UT auto-admit. I know a lot of people that got capped and only one that made it to BHP.

It would actually be my 4th time taking the SAT T_T I needed scores to get admitted to my current school. However, these scores were before sophomore year and year sophomore year.

I’ve considered Rice, but I strongly prefer to leave Texas. I think I might apply RD?

Yeah, it’ll definitely be a struggle. I’m going to try my best to get FA elsewhere before considering UCs w/o FA.

4

Don’t bother with the ACT. It won’t help at all. You look too admissions obsessed which can often look bad on an application.

It doesn’t matter whether you have good STEM ECs; it matters whether you have good ECs full stop. Very few high school students can do anything impressive in STEM.

If you are worried about not looking strong enough in science, work on getting high SAT subject test scores in science subjects. Shoot for 800s. Also work on getting higher AP scores. As many 5s as possible.

Work on making your application more coherent. It looks like you are resume padding quite a bit right now. The goal is not to make the application as overstuffed as possible.

Also, make sure you write good essays. Best of luck! If you want me to clarify anything I said, just ask.

5

@TheSATTeacher My new school doesn’t have APs at all. We take all college courses, which is why I had so much time to expand on my ECs this year.

Coming off as resume padding is definitely what I’m scared of right now. I just don’t know how to make it seem less padded? I know that I put a lot of time into each extracurricular (5-10 hour days everyday last summer for research, 6+ hours a week for some of the nonprofits I work for and 2+ for others) but I don’t know how to express that in my apps?

6

Ah. Still work on the subject tests. You can also always take APs, even if you haven’t taken the course.

You can specify how much time you spend on each thing in your app. By resume padding I didn’t just mean throwing in trivial things, though. I also meant trying to do so much just so you have a thick resume and not because you are intrinsically interested in the things you do.

Try to tell a coherent story. Group similar things together so you list fewer things. Eliminate more trivial things–be brutal. Make sure you come across as interested in the things you do. Also make sure the things you are doing are things you are interested in. Also, doing something a little more off the beaten path might help. Writing good essays is also important here. Try to come across as a 3-dimensional person.

7

@TheSATTeacher I don’t think I can take anymore APs since the registration deadline passed?

Could these be good categories? 1) Bio-related Research, 2) Community service (through STEM, tutoring, business) and 3) Business/Entrepreneurship?

Not sure if this is important, but I used to really want to be a surgeon, but realized that I’m also interested in entrepreneurship. I’m ~99.99% sure that I’ll choose either medicine or business (statistics, finance, or entrepreneurship) as my career field.

Thank you for your help!

8

This is correct–wasn’t really thinking when I said this. If your school doesn’t offer them, and students from your school do well in college admissions, I wouldn’t worry. Still, the subject tests are important.

Those are good ways of grouping the things you have, yes. When I see a breakdown like this, it makes it easier to process the more specific details. When I just see a big list, it makes it hard to decipher and process it all. Having these groupings creates a little more structure and narrative.

Embrace the indecision. It is good to be undecided and open to various options. It shows that you care and that you think about these things. Realistically speaking, people in high school are not in a very good position to know what they want to do with the rest of their lives anyway. Indeed, there are many options out there that you probably haven’t even considered. When I was your age, I didn’t know what half the majors most colleges offer consist in, and–truth be told–I probably still don’t. That being said, I wouldn’t necessarily tell colleges that you are interested in entrepreneurship outright. Try to seem more academically or socially focused. Medicine is fine. The majors you listed above are also fine.

9

Hey @TheSATTeacher ! I just placed first in my category and got best of fair at my state science fair, and now I’m qualified for ISEF (science fair internationals). I know it isn’t quantifiable, but how much do you think this adds to my ECs?

10

Congrats! Not really sure. I don’t know how impressive this is because I am not too educated about science fairs, e.g. how many people compete in them, how many fields there are, what sort of people compete in them, etc. College admissions officers are hopefully more educated in these things than I am. Definitely can’t hurt, though.

I will say, though, that unless your awards or achievements are super impressive, you shouldn’t necessarily structure your application around them. Awards and achievements in academic fields I think can be better viewed as signs of academic ability and competence than as extracurriculars. Very few students are admitted on academic merit alone, though. An award like this (if it is sufficiently impressive) strengthens the academic component of your application. However, it doesn’t necessarily show what the admissions officers want to see from the EC component of your application–interestedness, thoughtfulness, interestingness, personality, etc.–unless of course you can weave a narrative in which it does evidence the factors admissions officers want to see in the EC component of you application. In other words, this award will help more from an EC perspective the more you bring it to life.

An example might make this clearer. There are certain statewide or nationwide language tests/competitions that some students take. Let’s say a student participates in one of these competitions in Latin and does very well. We might just view this as an outgrowth of the student’s performance in school, i.e. she does really well in Latin in school and thus participates in this competition. This evidences academic strength but doesn’t really fall into the EC category. If, however, the student spends a lot of her free time involved in Latin–she reads works in Latin, translates Latin poetry, etc.–then this will be viewed more as an EC. This second case is not necessarily any more impressive (her poetry translations don’t have to be great or anything) but it is more compelling from the perspective of an admissions officer for several reasons. 1) We see more of the student’s personality. 2) We see the student as a person, not an achievement or a number. 3) We see that the student is curious and has intellectual interests. Indeed, all of these reasons may make this student very compelling even if she doesn’t do very well at the Latin competitions or participate in them at all. Admissions officers like to see people, not numbers.

I don’t know exactly what category your award falls into, but I would make sure to focus on your person, story, and interests.The award is more a way of communicating that your interests are genuine (that you aren’t faking or exaggerating anything) and that you are academically strong.