<p>I just realized that I shouldn't even be holding out for Cal. My extracurriculars seriously suck, especially for a high school junior. I'm in the Gay-Straight-Alliance, NHS, during the summer I'm a counselor at a Girl Scout camp, and I put in a volunteer application at the hospital a couple months ago.</p>
<p>I feel like I'm just screwed overall. My UC GPA should end up around 4.0, and my PSATs just came back a whopping 187 ( :( ). My classload is very heavy, and my rank should come out so far around 20/450. I'm not even a CA resident.</p>
<p>Well, it'd be terrible to say that there's a magic formula for getting into college. If anything, you shouldn't be forced to do something for the sake of college. Do ECs related to your passion because you'll actually care about what you're doing. </p>
<p>Don't worry about your PSAT. My SAT score is 20+ from my PSAT range. Just study and get the Blue Book to improve your SAT scores.</p>
<p>Everything I'm doing is what I like, but I just see all these California residents listing a million ECs and I feel bad, like I should be doing more</p>
<p>Win awards at the state or national level.
Hold meaningful positions in your clubs.
Score over 2000 on the SAT to even stand a good chance of acceptance for an out of state student (assuming non-engineering majors).</p>
<p>how would I go about winning awards at this point in high school? Nothing like that is ever publiczed in a high school where half the stdents plan to go to KU.</p>
<p>just do what you love to do, EC's shouldn't be an "extra" they should be a co-curricular activity. If you do things you love, you'll have something meaningful to write about in your essay. i loved playing football, played all 4 years in hs, so my essay (best part i thought) was about how football was an academic opportunity. Just chill, do your best, and thing's 'll work out.</p>
<p>Don't worry too much about awards or ECs. Join some clubs you like. Maybe a sport. Maybe the school band or something. You don't have to have a huge laundry list of activities.</p>
<p>These days I find the typical EC list too bland - some academic clubs, probably an honor band, and some sort math/science competition team. I recommend you find a sport, hopefully one where you can claim varsity status, just to mix it up. For ECs in general, find one particular activity of interest and heavily dedicate yourself to it, so you can stress your dedication in your UC essays.</p>