Would it be bad to not join a club your freshman year? Or is it ok to not start until sophomore year? My school has a lot of clubs, and I was going to do one that involved some type of community service. I'm not sure what most people do as far as doing clubs all 4 years of high school or what, or what colleges would usually expect.
I'm assuming we're talking about the freshmen year of high school, not college, correct?
Part of the benefit of joining a club early is the chance to work your way up the ranks and hopefully land some sort of leadership spot at some point. Leadership experience is an aspect of the application that many pre-meds overlook, and it's almost impossible to just jump into something as a leader; it has to be earned, usually over time. The earlier you start demonstrating, the better.
Granted, though, that high-school EC's are not usually taken into strong consideration unless they demonstrate some sort of continued commitment throughout your life. For instance, if you're part of the chemistry club in high school, and then move on to the chemistry club in college, it at least shows a commitment to and love of chemistry.
The other exception is community service. If you start showing a desire to do community service early on, it makes you look a lot better than the majority of pre-meds, who tend to start volunteering a year before their application is due just to get it out of the way.
Also, would colleges rather someone who did a sport for 4 years, or someone who used that elective spot to do another science course or something? I know they want to see well-rounded people, but I don't know if being in a sport for 4 years would seem like I am not dedicated enough to school.
At the high school level, sports are fine. Like I said, the EC's from high school are generally not going to be highly factored in to the overall strength of your application. Sports will generally not hurt nor help you significantly, unless, of course, your grades suffer as a result of your dedication to the sport.
It's great that you're thinking this far ahead, but right now, you aren't at a point where you need to be stressing too much about something that's, what, eight years off? Once you hit college, you'll begin having to do some real prioritizing, but for now, focus mainly on getting good grades and building a strong academic background that will ensure you can hit the ground running on your first day of college.
