Good for you that you have a strong academic record so far and you are planning ahead. Mycology is a pretty specific subject - you are only in junior high, so don’t be surprised if your interests change in high school, or even in college.
Here is some general advice, regardless of what you want to study in college:
- Research the career paths for people in majors that interest you. For example, in mycology would you be doing medical research, agricultural research or raising mushrooms for food? Broaden your horizons to similar or related fields. Don’t just read information online; try to talk to people in those fields. Be shameless and ask people about their careers, and you will find that most are happy to help.
- Don’t get hung up on status when you apply to colleges. Instead, focus on fit. To this end, when the time comes visit schools you are considering. Many students change their minds about schools after a campus visit.
- When you are evaluating colleges, think about the possibility of changing majors. Focus on schools which are strong in multiple fields in which you are interested.
- Admissions officers favor candidates who had a few ECs, but they showed advancement, leadership and accomplishment. A student who earned Eagle Scout, and/or lettered in a sport is more impressive than one who joined eight clubs to pad their application.
- Keep up the good work academically. Take the hard classes, especially in STEM. Prepare for your standardized tests with tutoring and practice exams.
- Enjoy high school. It is not all about grades, and you can make lifelong friends there. Take some risks, and get in a little trouble (that does not result in suspension, expulsion, or a police report). Explore.
As luck would have it, my younger son is entering his senior year and he also is interested in mycology (though that might change). Because of this, we have started looking for schools with programs in that field. Some schools bin mycology in their biology departments, and others in agriculture. A few treat mycology as a multi disciplinary lab. Here are some schools with undergraduate mycology programs: Purdue, UW Madison, Ohio State, Oregon State, NC State, and Washington State. Note that we were only looking at schools with agricultural science programs that also had mycology, so there are mycology programs that did not make our list.
Good luck to you.