Questions about EC's

Applying to College
1

<p>I am a junior this year, and I had a few questions about my EC’s/Volunteer work that are at the bottom.</p>

<p>Extracurricular activities:

  • Club swimming since 5th grade
  • On Varsity swim team of local HS since 10th grade (my school doesn’t offer swimming)
  • Founder and Head/Captain of my school’s Speech and Debate team (Varsity; since 9th grade)
  • Part of a graduate research group at a local university (since summer of 9th grade)
  • JV2 soccer (since 9th grade)
  • JV tennis (since 9th grade)
  • Science Research
  • 2 Research papers published in professional journals (separate topics)
  • Research presented at professional conference</p>

<p>Awards/Honors:

  • Varsity letter in swimming (10th grade)
  • Scholar-athlete (10th grade)
  • Various science research awards ranging from school to national level (some had cash)
  • Various math awards ranging from school to state level
  • Various policy debate awards (won a few competitions, including districts my novice year)
  • National AP Scholar</p>

<p>Volunteer work:

  • Tutoring/TA at elementary school (once or twice a week for 45 minutes; since 2nd semester 10th grade; will have approx. 75 hrs by the time I apply)
  • Assistant MathCounts coach at middle school (since 9th grade; 2 hours per week; will have approx. 144 hrs by the time I apply)
  • TA with a freshman orientation course in HS (~40 hours)
    Will do:
  • Teaching kids at a local Spanish elementary school (1 hour per week; all of 12th grade; speaking Spanish)
  • Service Trip to Guatemala (24hrs/day for 10 days; speaking only Spanish)</p>

<p>Work experience:

  • 2-week, non-paid research internship at a major health university (summer 10th grade)
  • Out-of-state, paid internship (summer 11th grade; will try)</p>

<p>Questions:
Considering that I am shooting for HYPSM,

  1. How do my EC’s/volunteer work look? How can I improve them?
  2. Am I lacking in local community service (I’ve talked to a few people who said I do)?
  3. From the options below, which one should I start doing (I only have time for one)?
  • Helping with a computer-based project at a local children’s hospital
  • Starting a local, bi-lingual tutoring program for low-income students
  • Joining my school’s InvenTeam, which researches problems in developing countries, and attempts to build solutions to them (the team received a grant from MIT a few years ago)
  1. Should I get a job on the weekends?
  2. Should I put the 2-week research internship under work experience or volunteer work (it was 126 hours)?</p>