"Colleges like to see a well-rounded, strong academic student who’s actively involved in their community. " This was very true a generation or two ago. It is not any more. Your best bet is to forget about college right now. Pursue academics and one or two areas of interest in addition to your classes. Forget about advice like “take the most APs you can”. Ho hummmm Instead, be the best student you can be. Are you interested in biology? If so, see if you can get some experience in a lab at a local college. Identify one area in biology and learn all you can about it. Interview someone doing research on that topic and submit an article to your school newspaper about your interview. Go to a talk at the local college if someone is speaking on that topic. is your interest in English literature? I knew someone who was interested in a particular writer. She interviewed her and wrote it up for the school paper. She also explored some of the actual locations where the writer’s most popular novel took place. She also joined a book club run at a small independent bookstore. She was the only person in the group under 20. That did not deter her. Don’t worry about what every one else is doing. Use your imagination to stretch beyond the usual. If you do that for the next 4 years you will have no worries about college. But do you mean your older or younger sibling and are your interests still engineering? I’m a little confused about your profile.