Are there any good extracurriculars a sophomore can take who aspires to be in medicine(neurology or psychology)?Answered
Hello, I'm a high school sophomore with all A's as of now. I'm not essentially concerned about my grades right now, but my extracurricular. A lot of my extracurriculars I am self-taught in, such as piano, drawing and singing. I participate in my dance club and plan to compete in HOSA when competition season begins. However, I have an issue with commitment and do not have outstanding roles in any of these. Are there any extracurricular competition or volunteer opportunities that could help me? I am also stressed because I'm taking just one AP class, while some of my classmates are taking 3. Am I okay, or is this hurting me?
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2 answers
Honestly, I think you're in a pretty good spot? Keeping up your A's is very important I think but for your extracurriculars, I don't think it's bad to have many Arts commitments- and it's not always through official roles and titles that you show the attributes that colleges most want. When describing your activities, just maybe mention how you helped a struggling player or acted as a mediator in your dance group or whatever you've done that's helped you build leadership and responsibility. If you are looking for more extracurriculars, there's always an option to start up your own medical club at school. Like the one I created for my school just works to make posters and articles about goo hygiene practices in school and also organizes donation drives to deliver new sanitary supplies to underprivileged children and teach them how to keep themselves clean for the effort of empowering children through a cycle of education. You can also just partner with a non-profit, public, or free-of-charge hospital in your area and donate to them through organizing fundraisers at your school as we did.
Lastly, for the AP class, I take IB so I don't really know how that works but you could always pick up 1 or 2 more if you wanted? But honestly, I think it's best to just do what you think is best because I honestly can't tell you that taking 3 AP classes and getting Bs and Cs is better than 1 AP class with all As. Do what you think you can handle.
Best of luck <3!
I think you're doing pretty good so far. I don't know about other schools, but for us it's better to get an A in an honors or regular class than get a B or C in an AP class. As colleges get more competitive, our counselors advised us to try to balance our GPA so that we have good grades while also being in a decent amount of hard classes. I don't know if that makes sense, but basically, if your confident you can get an A in the AP class, take it. If you aren't sure, then maybe take it next year.
As for extracurriculars, I don't really have any ideas because I don't want to be on a premed path, but what kids at my school have done is volunteer at hospitals or shadow a doctor at small clinic. I would try emailing places around you to see if you could shadow there. Good luck!
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Thank you so so so so much for the advice! <33333