<p>So, my friend and I got into an argument yesterday while we were doing our college applications together. </p>
<p>He asked me if he should say he took a leadership role within his gaming community. I immediately replied, "That's a bad idea". I said that "gaming" by itself, has a negative connotation in education. It symbolizes laziness. I completely disagree with education's view on video games, but it's what college admin officers see. </p>
<p>So, my friend argued that his leadership role in his gaming community involved running weekly practices, entering online competitions with other gaming communities, teaching others to become better at the game, providing a sense of unity and bond, recruiting members into the community, and running a website where fellow community members can communicate with each other. </p>
<p>Now, to me, this sounds a lot like the role of any leader. He told me that the things he does is the exact same thing that any team captain does. Though, I argued that the people you practice with, the people in your community, you never get to see their face. All you hear is their voice and all you see is their online avatar. Also, gaming is still a negative connotation, I warned him that if you tried to explain yourself as team captain of some Halo team, you'll just get marked down as a lazy fat-ass who doesn't care about school. That's just how college admission officers see it. </p>
<p>Who's right? Me or him? I wanted to discuss this matter with everyone else. What do you all think?</p>
<p>Last year, an admissions officer from UC Santa barbara talked about how some kid wrote in his app that he was (well pretty much just as your friend is) and the adcoms liked it because it demonstrated a leadership role. Albeit this is UCSB, it does show leadership and passion. However to give you a more useful and accurate point of view, what are your friend’s other EC’s? If his EC’s are pretty solid, then i would advise him not to put it in. If you friend’s EC’s are weak, then put it in, it can only help, in my opinion.</p>
<p>I’m not totally sure of all his other ECs, but he is team captain of our hockey team for his junior and senior year. He argues it’s the exact same thing as being the team captain of his Halo team. Except one is focused on Hockey and the other is focused on Halo.</p>
<p>I want to also mentions that I have done the same thing he did. Have a leadership role in a gaming community. I did the same things he did, though I don’t want to mention it because, again, it’s about video games. Though, the community centers around the video game which fervors almost a team spirit. </p>
<p>If you want to know, my feature EC is being a freelance 3D designer. I also founded several micro-transaction e-businesses, my products being 3D models. I’m also the Percussion section leader in my school’s band this year. </p>
<p>I’m not really sure what defines a person’s ECs “solid” or “weak”, but this is just the jist of our ECs.</p>
<p>actually for 3d design, video game experience may actually be a plus lol~</p>
<p>i would say it helps. some schools have courses about Starcraft and my friend talked about Stacraft at his USC interview (because USC has a Starcraft team)</p>
<p>Srsly? Some schools have Starcraft courses…? Like… you get credit for being a Starcraft pro? That’s FREAKING AWESOME!!!</p>
<p>As a “retired” gamer and watching guild leaders in action, my opinion is, it’s great experience. If your friend was an in-game moderator, that also is a great experience. One learns how to mediate, facilitate, delegate, listen and learns how to deal with a variety of personalities. Getting 40 people together to do battle and making sure each one understands his/her role role and successfully complete the raid or the quests, is not that easy of a task.</p>
<p>For those who have never played a MMORPG, the idea of gamer being anything but a slacker is foreign. On the contrary, the nature of the games require interaction with others. I am still in awe of the fact that I was “playing and speaking” with people from all over the world, planning strategies, following orders, and celebrating.</p>
<p>That being said, it needs to be shown that there was not an addicting quality to gaming, meaning that’s all you do. This will show time management skills. I think if gaming is framed correctly, it can be a positive.</p>
<p>Silver, I completely agree with you. How would you word it in a brief way? Our UC apps only allow about 160 characters for each extracurricular activity for a brief explanation.</p>
<p>Oh my goodness. Only 160 characters? My meager advice is to write a draft essay, then break it down into bullet points, like a Powerpoint presentation.</p>
<p>(And that was about 140 or so characters) :(</p>
<p>You are basically limited to a few verbs.</p>
<p>As a side note, since we never “see” the person behind the screen, you’d be surprised at who plays these games. I played WoW since the original release. My guild included accountants, real estate agents, a priest, mailmen, web designers, executives and obligatory college and high schoolers. I also found out that some of my daughter’s parent’s friends also played (PvP servers, no less - lol) – I’m saying that to say, it is not inconceivable that there are some ad-coms who also may be gamers.</p>
<p>Good luck to you!</p>