@SeekingPam- low income students are usually eligible to receive financial aid for programs like CTY, which try to increase socioeconomic diversity.
@Mojiri- I work with low-income HS students who are looking to attend college.
While I appreciate the posts about working as an extracurricular a lot, my experience in working with low-income students looking at elite schools is that work alone is not enough. They’re absolutely right that you can (and should!) frame work as a EC. What skills have you learned about responsibility, time management, collaboration, etc? Have you learned anything about yourself and the kind of person you are?
Other thoughts-- play on your strengths. CTY is a really cool opportunity, and should be something you write about (both the experience, but perhaps also the differences in environment and what you learned about yourself, if anything). Online programming contests are great, as are the community college courses.
Since you’re looking at elite schools, though, is it possible to decrease the number of CC courses to free up some time? Most of the elite schools won’t take any of your CC credits, though most public and state schools will.
As you finish up this year and go into the next, are there opportunities to be involved with local hackathons or other programming groups? Are you involved in church or a community organization that could also be a EC? (The students I work with through a college access program often don’t realize the college-access program itself is a EC-- for them, it’s just what “they do”.) If you have a teacher, mentor, or friend who knows you well, talk to them (or your parents, maybe!). Oftentimes juniors have forgotten what they’ve done that might “count,” and a friend/teacher/adult can remind you of the cool things you’ve done throughout HS or what they’ve noticed about you.
With your scores, you might also consider QuestBridge, with more info located here (https://www.questbridge.org/high-school-students/national-college-match/how-to-apply).
PM me with more questions if you have any!