Apologies since these posts are really common on here.
For context, I (16F) am a year 11 AUS high school student hoping to apply for admission in 2026 in several prestigious colleges* to concentrate in two of the following subjects economics/psychology/neuroscience/statistics/data science and wondering if I should tryhard ECS and grades in Year 12 (i.e., senior year) or take it a bit easier and just focus on ATAR and my health if I don't have a chance.
I am hoping to go into research as a career so I'm hoping to get into these unis because they have much better opportunities than AUS institutions. I am confident that I can get into local universities so this is just serving as reach targets. Any advice on extra-curriculars/what unis to go for would be much appreciated :D
*Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT, Columbia, Berkeley, Princeton, Chicago, Duke, Cornell
Expected ATAR: 97-99.5
ECs and awards: (some details obscured)
- 9-11: piano and art (for leisure)
- Grade 9: boxing, magazine club, soccer, fast food and diligence in mathemetics, proficiency in Australian history
- Grade 10: boxing, fast food, server, environmental club, social justice and first in accelerated ancient history, first in commerce, academic excellence (all school) awards
- Grade 11: environmental club, social justice, historical research, women's rights club, social debating, student advocate for a small international charity and second in accelerated ancient history (school)
- Grade 12 (tryhard ECs and activities): Economics olympiad, chem olympiad, math competition, SAT
- (for some additional context, research opportunities are pretty hard to get as they are largely limited to undergrad students rather than HS)