<p>Alright guys, so I'm a junior at a pretty prestigious boarding school that specializes in math and science. I'm thinking about going into business but I my extracurricular is actually so bad. I'm really uninformed and terrible at prioritizing--I don't know what looks good college and what's unimportant. So can you help me decide which activities I should continue and which I should drop? I don't have time for all of them, obviously.
So here it goes, I'm only going to list the major ones:
math team (highest accomplishment is AIME, which I got a six on. not good, not bad)
facilitator of a leadership education program at my school. It's really time-consuming and completely student run. We write our own curriculum and host leadership training programs for students across the state. This is also a mandatory course for our sophomores.
Mu Alpha Theta. I'm the secretary and started MAO competitions at my school this year (I know it's stupid that our chapter didn't even have competitions before, but bear with me)
tennis (I'm pretty bad. so far only on JV)
speech team. really time consuming and I don't think it's worth my time, because my highest accomplishment is getting 4th at a small invite. heck, I didn't even go the regionals last year.
Art: I have a lot of paintings I've done in the past, and so far one of them has been accepted for publication by Celebrate Art. I might take some lessons to make more quality drawings though.
I'm also trying to start a chapter for relay for life at my school, but I don't know how that'll go.
Oh and I'm doing research on breast cancer at a nearby university's medical center and looking to enter some competitions like intel.
So here's the question:
Should I quit speech team? I'm also thinking about doing FBLA, TEAMS (an engineering competition), and Science Bowl, but I don't know if I have the time. Even if I do, these are team competitions so I don't know if it'll be significant. I don't know if I should do tennis next year either because it's really time-consuming and I'm only on JV. Finally, what do you think about that leadership program our school has? It's really time-consuming and I love it but I don't know about college :/</p>
<p>I’ll try to help. But I’m running off of caffeine and am sleep deprived.</p>
<p>1) Do tennis. It’s fun!
2) IMO, FBLA isn’t too helpful when it comes to learning about business, at least not here. I personally do not like it.
3) How did you get to do the research? Who did you talk to? I’m looking into a similar opportunity.</p>
<p>Focus on the EC’s that matter to you, the ones that help define you as a person now or who you hope to become. Do not put energy into deciding which EC’s look good to colleges; these are experienced AO’s who can smell it from a mile away.</p>
<p>Finally, I know this is only an informal internet forum, but paragraphs are your friend; one big block of test is a pain to read.</p>
<p>Teyrkis, I just literally ran through the staff directory and kept e-mailing until my advisor took me in. Don’t know if that helps, but it’s really not that complicated.</p>
<p>Why aren’t you doing anything business-related, or finance, or entrepreneurship? This looks like that old joke about the guy looking for his keys beneath the streetlight because the light is better there.</p>
<p>The Leadership Training is good. How can you expand on that? Maybe add modules on ROI or cash flow analysis for making leadership choices? idk.</p>
<p>@ItsJustSchool, the Leadership Training includes a pretty large part on Social Entrepreneurships, and we even bring in real entrepreneurs to give feedback on our program. Also, I only recently decided that I wanted to go into business so…</p>
<p>Since you think speech is “really time consuming” and " Not worth your time",
May I ask you: Why did you join speech team and have stayed there for three years? How much time have you spent on speech (hrs/wk, wks/yr)? Do you truly like speech? Or hate speech?</p>
<p>@cherryli2015 you see I skipped freshman year so I only started it last year, since I was fresh out of middle school and wanted to try new things. Also, I was really shy so I hoped that speech would help me come out of my box (it did), and I didn’t really do it to win anything (although that would’ve been nice).
I spent at least 2 hours per week on speech, sometimes more.
I think that I enjoyed speech, but since I’ve come to the realization that I’m already in my junior year with nothing to help me stand out to college, it’s time to stop fooling around and win things.</p>
<p>@phyish You only spent 2 hrs/wk on speech? You do not need to participate tournament?
In my daughter’s school, anyone in speech team needs to spend at least 15 hrs/wk during speech season. Every Saturday’s tournament needs 12 hours (leave home before 6am, and back to home after 6pm)</p>
<p>@phyish My daughter’s school’s speech season is from Oct to Feb. Except thanks giving & winter break, they have tournament in every weekend. So totally about 12-15 tournaments each year depends on how far you can make to regional/sectional/state. How many tournaments does your school require you guys to participate each year?</p>
<p>@cherryli2015 you see i go to a school that specializes in math and science so only about 6 tournaments are available, and I went to every one. Over all we’re pretty bad, only one or two people went to sectionals, and they had a very strong foundation from their old high schools.</p>
<p>@Phyish Sorry I’m just really interested in how you got the opportunity. Did you just introduce yourself, and offer to help? How did you word the email? Why did they say yes? What do you do?</p>