I'm currently an upcoming junior for the 2020-2021 school year and my extracurricular activities have been embarrassingly scarce. Although I have been taking challenging classes for the past two years, I don't have much to show for my self in regard to extracurriculars due to mental health issues. My dream is to attend MIT, Stanford, CalTech, or GeorgiaTech, and I plan on majoring in Aerospace/Astronautical Engineering. Is there any way that I can build up my extracurricular profile within the next 1 1/2 years before applications start rolling in?
I would definitely think about joining your schools robotics team if that is possible. Robotics Team shows your heavy interest in engineering. Starting a YouTube Channel can be very slow and difficult to make worthy of mentioning on a college application. However, the interships you listed seem very good and would help you.
I encourage you to reach out to a university professor and ask about doing research with them. First you will want to think of an extremely specific topic but once you have, you can send them an email and they may respond. There are several resources online about how to go about this so a quick google search will give you all you need.
To keep this community safe and supportive:
Ok, so I came up with some potential ideas, do you think these will look good on applications for the colleges mentioned above?
EnergyMag Internship (or any STEM-related internship)
Starting a Science Blog
Applying to a Math Competition
Individual Research Project
Automotive Technology Internship (ROP course offered at my school)
Coding/Robot Project
Start a YouTube Channel related to STEM
Stargazing Hobby (I'm planning on getting a telescope soon)