Idek I was practicing essays for law-school applications

Throughout my years in highschool I had received a decent amount of honors and recognition through my volunteerism and work throughout the school and outside of school. The school district I was in does not allow individual grade or GPA awards such as class ranks, valedictorian, honor roll, and so on. The district is very much all about inclusion and doesn’t believe in those kinds of awards and the ones given out are never just for one person. With that I made it my goal to find ways to get recognition in other forms while also trying to do good for not only myself but my peers and other people around me as well. At the end of my sophomore year, my grade level principal asked me to join M-Crew Counsel for the following year. M-crew is a program that gives incoming freshmen up to 3 juniors or seniors to help guide them through their first year at this new school. The Counsel of this program plans everything, who is paired with who, what events happen each month, and so on. I applied to join, we had to write an essay and be approved by multiple people, and immediately got it. 

Upon joining I was immediately put on counsel and was the only junior to be on that counsel. This had made making my voice heard much more difficult but i realized early on if i were to not speak up my impact would never be made. I quickly became more and more involved in the program and with the freshman. There particularly was a small group of freshmen struggling with their classes and starting to fall far behind. I scheduled a time to meet with these students and we came up with a plan. We organized the importance of the work they needed to do and set up a schedule of when to do what. I took time as well to give each kid an individualized tutoring and help time once a week, I was already a member of the tutoring program board so I used this resource to help as well. Those struggling kids were able to raise their grades and get caught up. There was specifically one student who I assisted with Algebra 1, they were failing at the beginning of the year and by the time the 2nd semester had ended they had an A- in the class. That impact as I also learned made these kids more confident in advocating for themselves, no longer being afraid to ask for help but also being more confident in their ability to do things on their own. I put in hours to this program every week and stayed after school and came to school before the first bell multiple times to help the administration in charge and the freshman. 

My last year of highschool I joined the program again and my grade level principal who runs the program requested I join counsel again. I did so and shortly after I received an email asking me to become the student head of the program. I immediately agreed of course and so far it has been a lot of work but seeing the impact it has, makes it worth it. I had even been working with the administration to allow more tutoring and help opportunities for students using fellow peers, and so far we had re-established the peer tutoring program. This alone allows multiple struggling students to get the help they may need and helps them raise their grades. 

Through this program I did receive a lot of awards and honors but the impact it has made is far more important. I aspire to keep going with this program and help as much as possible until I graduate in the hope that the students who need the help know they can. Of the time I had put into the school's mentoring program for freshmen and the tutoring I do for students on the side. Last year I was able to help a student who was struggling in school, having a C average for grade, raise their grade to having high B's and some A's. I put lots of time into helping the kids I tutored and right now into M-crew. I am proud of the impact I have made with these things and I can see how helping those kids not only helps their grades but can boost their confidence, their ability to ask for help, and their ability to believe in themselves, to believe in their ability to do well for themselves.