This is a very long read, as I'm sure you can see. If you can give any advice, it would be greatly appreciated.
I'm 16 and I'm an incredibly ambitious student. I'm hoping to perhaps get into Stanford or Yale, but it's unlikely. I come from a relatively poor background, and it is my dream to make something of myself, perhaps as a biomedical engineer or a primary care doctor.
I want to help people, and as I excel in areas of math and science, both careers seem like good choices for me to contribute to society and for me to be intellectually stimulated.
From here on, I'll list reasons exactly why I don't seem to have the time to exercise.
I'm currently taking 4 Advanced Placement classes, AP US History (I'll refer to this as APUSH subsequently), AP Macroeconomics, AP Microeconomics and AP English Language and Composition (APLAC), and self-studying AP Psychology.
All of these are intended to be college-level classes. My high school is one of the upper-tier in the state, so quite often, these AP classes are above the work load in normal college classes.
APUSH is an enormous amount of work. Notes, which are a required part of my class, can take anywhere from 2-4 hours, along with other additional work such as essays, flash cards and document annotation.
It is an intense memorization course; all of this would likely be required regardless in order to be able to pass the difficult tests, if it wasn't already graded.
APLAC is time consuming in how we must devote a lot of time memorizing prepositions, rhetorical devices, and learning grammar rules and techniques such as appositives. There's a lot of intensive timed essay practice and literary analysis as well.
AP Econ is not as difficult as the other two, but there is a lot of concepts to learn and memorize as it is intended to be a two-year class, but in my high school, we take them as as semester classes.
AP Psych requires all of the studying which the other classes entail, except I also must constantly do practice tests and free-response questions in order to keep my knowledge sharp, since I don't have it as a class, which would otherwise motivate me.
This is not including my other classes, French 5-6 and Chemistry 1-2.
As for other obligations, I am a member of Key Club and National Honors Society, both of which are service group. NHS, however, is more merit-based. I spend around 40-50 hours a month volunteering at various places in my community. I'm on my school's Key Club officer board as Key Club Secretary as well, which can be very time consuming. On Fridays, I participate in my school's STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) club. On Wednesdays, I spend my afternoons teaching 5th-8th grades how to play the violin.
I used to have swim practice in the morning and afternoon in the fall season, but it ended a few months ago. Although I'm overweight, I'm oddly a good swimmer as I qualified for districts this year for the 200 Free and 100 Back.
Speaking of playing the violin, I'm in my school chamber orchestra, which is a before-school program. Every day, I must wake up at 5:00 AM and come to school to play. This also entails spending some time practicing every now and then to keep my skills sharps. I also play the piano as a hobby, but I haven't had much time to do that, as I'm sure you can imagine.
I am also participating in an state Aerospace Scholars program and a Math Academy program. Both are summer residency programs which I am currently applying to. The application process is very competitive, and I must spend several hours a week writing essays and completing math problems in an effort to qualify.
In the summer, I would like spend time in Argentina or Bolivia volunteering to help African villages and to help with AIDS research. In August, I'll probably be spending time job shadowing or interning at UW Medical Center.
Lingering constantly in the back of my mind is a need to study for the ACT, SAT and SAT II Subject Tests, which is practically mandatory for anyone who wants to go to an upper-tier college. I also need to start applying for more summer programs, scholarships and financial aid.
I'm planning on spending more time studying French for the AP French and for the French National Exam next year. I also need to spend time studying for the American Mathematics Competition this year.
In time, I will probably be writing a research paper on Multiple Sclerosis and the signal transduction pathway associated with this condition and discuss the normal and abnormal pathway.
I will need to read a lot of medical and scientific journals and interpret the information, which will undoubtedly be difficult.
I would like to start my own non-profit organization for providing medical assistance to families in need, but I'm not entirely sure how I would go about doing that yet. It will, eventually, become a very big obligation, if I successfully establish it.
Next year, I will likely be more busy than ever. I will have college and scholarship applications to fill out, much more academic obligations, and I'll also be captain of the swim team, which will take more time. I'm not entirely sure about what else I plan on doing, but I know this isn't all of it by far.
There are some other things I have probably forgotten, but those are all I have on my mind right now.
I'm thinking about playing on the tennis team at my school in the spring, but I just feel so uncomfortable running around with other students as I'm not athletic at all outside of the pool.
I just don't seem to have the time to cook healthy meals for myself, either. Usually I'll just grab a bagel or something and go.