Is junior year too late to start new extracurriculars?Answered
Hello! Sophomore here, I'll be going into junior year after this summer. I am pretty strong in academics (3.9 unweighted GPA, 4.5 weighted) and have many AP classes and tests coming up, but my extracurricular profile is not impressive enough for the schools I aim for. I want to get it to the best it can be before my time's up; is starting to do so in junior year too late? Do colleges care how long you've been part of such activities?
My current profile:
- Member of the California Scholarship Federation (Started 10th grade + plan to continue)
- Member of a competitive dance team that specializes in folk dance (Started as a kid but quit; Picked up again in 10th grade + plan to continue)
- Held multiple leadership positions in my school's arts council (9th - 10th grade + plan to continue)
- About over 30 hours of volunteer hours (plan to continue)
- 7 years of piano lessons (Quit already; unfortunately I have no test certificate to prove that I even did piano :,) )
- Held several major nonlead roles in school theatre productions (10th grade + plan to continue)
Next year along with continuing the activities I mentioned above, I plan to try out for my school's Science Olympiad team and run for president of my school's Chinese Club, and I am currently looking for medical related internships/opportunities to participate in over the summer; I am also going to be paid to work as an assistant to my math tutor and may do algebra/English tutoring myself as a side job. Recently I have applied to be part of a leadership crew that directs welcome events for freshmen at my school and also may apply for the National Honor Society in junior year once I have amassed an impressive enough of a resume, and I'm aiming to make my school's dance team by senior year.
So yes, I have lots of plans, but I don't know if colleges will find them impressive considering that I started so late! I'm in a really sticky position since I did barely anything during freshman year (partly because of COVID), and I also didn't discover that I wanted to go into science until this year. I'm currently aiming to study premed/biomed at NYU, BU, UCI, or USC, which are all pretty competitive schools; so this has been stressing me out quite a bit (I feel like I'm making a mad dash for time!) Any advice would be really appreciated!!
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5 answers
It's definitely not too late! In fact, sophomore year is a terrific time to start building up a stellar extracurricular resume. It's excellent that you have so many plans (Science Olympiad, Chinese club, medicine-related internships, tutoring, dance, leadership crew, NHS... wow!). That said, I'd probably try to focus your extracurriculars into two categories.
The first should be extracurriculars that relate to your future major. If you're planning to study Biology or Chemistry and be pre-med, then having a few related extracurriculars like a research assistantship, volunteering in a clinical setting or shadowing doctors, and participating in Science Olympiad would be great. If you're planning to do biomedical engineering, then some tech or engineering activities would look great also.
The second should be extracurriculars that relate to your spike. This spike could be in your intended major, or it could be something totally unrelated. For example, you could have a spike in dance. If you don't really know what spikes are, I'd check out our Youtube video on it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30evWEhB21E. In short, it's a collection of activities (and possibly also some courses) in which you demonstrate significant achievement. I'd start thinking about where you might be able to build a spike, and add a few activities in that area!
Best of luck!
it's not too late, keep picking up EC's until you apply for every college you're going to apply to.
Definitely never too late, I started wrestling my junior's year and I'm starting art classes my senior year after taking only weighted classes from freshman-junior year. Starting new things doesn't have a timeline and you should go for it.
Hello,
Wow. Just wow. You've done a lot and you plan to do more! That's amazing!!! Have you considered volunteering? Maybe an animal shelter or picking up garbage?
I'm also in the same position, but I have done a lot less than you. Junior year isn't too late to start extracurriculars. It's actually the same year my sister started. I would suggest to get into HOSA, a club for future healthcare professionals. My sister did it and was able to get an award from one of the competitions. The awards you get from the competitions may help.
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I don't think that it would be too late, but I do know there will be much more work. If you feel that you're not happy with the things you're doing now I say go for it. :)