<p>I am a Cleveland area (read: suburb) high school student going into tenth grade once August rolls around. My academics are very strong, I currently have a 4.2 GPA and am ranked 9th (top 5%) in my class of 368. My schedule for ninth grade was:
Honors English
Honors Biology
Honors Chemistry
Algebra I
Honors Geometry
Survey of Social Studies
Phys. Ed./Health
Latin I</p>
<p>My school’s curriculum operates on three levels of intensity for all subjects starting at the general class, followed by the honors level, followed by the A.P. level. Not all classes have honors or A.P. alternatives, as is the case with Algebra I. The social studies class did have an honors alternative which I would’ve loved to take since not only do I have an aptitude for it, I find the subject thoroughly interesting. However, due to scheduling conflicts I had to choose between Honors Geometry and Honors Social Studies and since I am more of a science/math oriented student and plan to pursue a science/math oriented future I chose Hon. Geometry over Hon. SS. There were no A.P. classes offered to freshmen. I am currently in an accelerated path in both the math and science departments since in math i was able to double up and in science i was able to skip the Physical science class (the traditional freshman science course at my school) and I doubled up, taking Honors Biology (traditional 10th grade class) and Honors Chemistry (traditional 10/11th grade class), I was the only freshman to do this.</p>
<p>Next year my schedule is as follows:
Honors American Literature
Honors Algebra II
Honors Pre-calculus/Trigonometry
A.P. US History
A.P. US History Seminar
Genetics/Microbiology
Anatomy and Physiology
Latin II</p>
<p>I had planned to take both A.P. Biology and A.P. Chemistry along with A.P. US History but due to scheduling problems and upper-classmen priority, that was not possible, even though i had completed and excelled in all pre-reqs. I replaced those classes with two science electives (Genetics and Anatomy). I don’t mind this, especially the genetics class because genetics is a field that really interests me, but they could compromise my GPA as they are unweighted classes. I talked with my guidance counselor about partially correcting this with A.P. Physics (Physics B, I believe) but my pre-reqs are not completed enough to be able to take the class next year. Specifically, I am one math class behind where i would need to be in order to fit the class in next year. I tried to fight the administration but they were fairly adamant on the necessity of having the pre-reqs completed. I plan on scheduling an appointment with my principal before the summer is up to discuss this problem further so there is still life in the fight yet!</p>
<p>The A.P. classes that my school offers that I will be taking in the future are:
A.P. Biology
A.P. Chemistry
A.P. Calculus (AB i believe)
A.P. Physics (if not next year)
A.P. English Literature
A.P. Psychology
A.P. US Government and Politics
A.P. Statistics</p>
<p>In addition to excelling in school, I am always looking for extracurricular opportunities for both resume building but also to fulfill personal interests. I sometimes hold a grudge against people who do things just because a college/other entity they’re trying to impress will look upon them favorably instead of doing things because they have a genuine interest in the subject/activity but that’s easy for me to say since I have genuine interests in a wide variety of subjects/activities/fields both academic and non academic.</p>
<p>Some extra curriculars I’m currently involved in are my school’s drama club, with which I’ve been in several productions, my school’s academic challenge team, and I’m currently a volunteer at the Cleveland Clinic in their Junior Ambassador program. The Junior Ambassador program was fairly selective (about 80 volunteers from about 350 applicants) but I don’t really regard it as a huge accomplishment because, disregarding the selectivity, the tasks that I perform are, save for a few, menial.</p>
<p>Next summer, if not sooner, i want to pursue some other out of school programs. My ultimate short term goal is to land some sort of biomedical sciences/clinical internship position. I’m especially looking for a research internship since I have a strong interest in molecular biology/genetics and chemistry but due to the bleak career outlooks for those fields, I don’t realistically see myself pursuing them as a career choice (unless i did something like pursue an MD/PhD, which could be a possibility) so i want to capitalize on my time in high school and college to expose my self to some research opportunities while they are still beneficial to me.</p>
<p>As far as I know, in the Cleveland Area, the only such official programs available for high school students are the summer high school internship programs offered by the Cleveland Clinic, which I definitely plan on applying to next summer. I would’ve applied this summer, but I am not yet sixteen which is a requirement (probably due to the fact that it’s a paying position). They have several programs available such as General Science internship, Medical Laboratory internship, Radiology internship, Nursing internship, Public Health internship…</p>
<p>I definitely plan on applying to the Medical Laboratory internship but also the General Science one if they permit applicants to apply to two internships.</p>
<p>My only concern is that, according to the website for the internships, they recommend a background in experimental sciences such as significant contribution to a science fair project or other similar pursuits. I don’t have that kind of experience (i participated in some mandatory school science fairs in elementary and middle school but my projects weren’t exactly scientifically rigorous/groundbreaking/interesting). This sort of thing isn’t mandatory, only recommended, but I’d like to have any sort of edge I can get when applying, since I’ll be applying as a sophomore with limited A.P. classes and no relevant lab experience from school.</p>
<p>Do any of you guys have some suggestions in regards to pursuing some project over the next school year? If I were to do something I would want it to be both appealing to the internship program, interesting to me and sufficiently advanced but within my abilities. I can’t really figure out how I would do something like that without any money or resources, which I don’t have. Hopefully some of you can help me in this respect.</p>
<p>Also, since I’m trying not to put all my eggs in one basket, I was wondering if any of you knew of some similar programs out there. I am aware of some of the more prominent programs out there that accept applicants on a national basis (there’s a whole thread about it somewhere on here) but none of them are anywhere around my area. If it were up to me, that wouldn’t be a problem but due to money constraints and the fact that I’m not sure my parents would be too willing to let me live on my own for an entire summer since most of those programs don’t provide housing, I will realistically not be able to participate in a great deal of those. So, besides contacting hospitals or universities individually which I’m also considering doing, are there any programs that are near Cleveland or even anywhere in Ohio or just outside state lines that I’m missing?</p>
<p>I apologize for the mini-novel but i sometimes have trouble condensing my thoughts.</p>
<p>Just to recap, my inquiries are:
To satisfy the suggestion by the Cleveland Clinic Internship programs that applicants have some experience with science projects/experiments, do any of you have suggestions for how to pursue some some experiment or project that would look appealing to them, i.e. more advanced than general science fair material?</p>
<p>AND</p>
<p>Are there any other official internship-type programs, preferably in biomedical research but also any type of laboratory science or clinical/hospital setting internships around the Cleveland area or within Ohio?</p>
<p>Thank you in advance for your suggestions and input</p>