Hi, I’m a current HS junior and I am wondering what I can do to improve my admission chances at competitive schools. Not necessarily Ivies but schools at Howard Honors program- type level.
African American female, middle class
Possible Majors: some form of History, International Relations, or Political Science
Academics
-Straight A student throughout HS, lowest grade was an A-
-on scholarship at a competitive New England private school
-My school doesn’t have many AP’s for the liberal arts, has special these AP equivalent classes
-Junior Year: taking APUSH, 2 of the special AP equivalent classes, and 1 honors math class, 3 regular (no opportunities for honors in English and Chinese, but chose to take reg chem instead of AP)
-High honor roll (3.67 GPA or above) every semester of school
-current 3.95 Unweighted GPA
EC’s
-Student government: 3 years, meets weekly
-Model UN: member for 3 years, meets weekly
-school magazine: staff writer sophomore year, section editor junior year, weekly meetings
-JV lax team- 1 year but plan on doing it again
-attending national SDLC conference in December, will plan and facilitate local SDLC conference later that year
Test scores
-1300 SAT, just started studying this summer (starting point was 1200) and plan to study throughout the rest of this year
-25 Pre-ACT (sophomore year)
Volunteer work
-this is where I need to improve. I’m at school from 8-7:30 every night except Thursdays and Fridays (b/c of club meetings), so I’m finding it hard to have time to regularly volunteer during the week. Any ideas for places to volunteer with flexible hours? I wanted to get a job but I don’t think that’s possible with my current schedule.
First, you are at a Prep School, whose primary purpose is to prepare you for college- and the more selective the Prep School, the more selective the colleges that they are preparing you for!
Second, what do you do over the summers? School breaks?
Finally, with respect to volunteering, at this point, picking up volunteer hours just to have volunteer hours isn’t going to impress colleges. BUT: it is full on political season right now, and getting involved with a campaign is a trifecta of a legitimate think to volunteer for; broadly fits with your academic interests; and is infinitely flexible. You can start by doing things on weekends, then more intensively on breaks. By summer you may well be senior enough to have a leadership role- and showing both commitment over time and increasing responsibility are useful things for applications. It may also yield interesting material for essays next fall.
Note that this does NOT mean that you like politics, or that you have any interest in going into anything political. It can mean nothing more than that you are an active, engaged citizen, doing something that you feel will make a positive contribution to the community. As somebody with an interest in history / IR / polisci it is getting a look at how politics in the US works on the ground. You may well decide that one close up look is enough- and that’s as legit an outcome as deciding that you want more of it. Either way, in many polisci areas, having extended campaign work on your CV is a serious positive (whether the candidate won or lost), and can help get (good) internships and/or job offers (as collegekid1 discovered).
@idkonetimeting Parent of a Howard student with a full scholarship here. You look like you are doing a lot of the right things already. My advice to you would be to just continue to work hard in school and with your standardized test prep and to find extra-curricular activities/volunteer work that you love and fit your interests. You will have a lot of great options when your time comes so I am saying congratulations in advance.