<p>I am a rising senior, and am currently spending the summer of my junior year in two months of intensive Crew camp, which is basically competitive rowing. ALL (yes, almost literally, ALL :P ) of my friends are in Crew, and I really wish I'd joined earlier when pressured to in freshman/sophomore year. Now that I've started, I'm loving it and plan on competing throughout the summer/senior year.
I haven't done any of this prior to this summer, and I'm worried that it'll look to college admission officers like I'm just trying to beef up my application, which I'm really not...how much is this going to hurt me when I apply to my dream colleges (Yale, Harvard, Stanford, etc) and is it going to leave a bad impression? :(
Thanks in advance! :)</p>
<p>They’re not going to reject you because you took on a new hobby.</p>
<p>Ha, I’ve been piling on new activities every year of high school. I only did fencing starting junior year, started Debate Club junior year, joined the Italian Club senior year, etc. It’s not an issue, as long as you’ve been doing SOMETHING for the past three years.</p>
<p>No need to obsess or fret over little things like this. It’s not as if you did nothing for the past three years and suddenly added 5 new ECs.<br>
Plus, resume padding more often refers to having a lot of ECs that you don’t really commit to at all (ex. member of 10 different clubs that you only spend 1hr in every other week). If you’re doing this throughout the summer and planning to compete, it’d just look like a new interest. Which may actually be preferable, as colleges see that you can still make time for a new activity in midst of all the college app craze and didn’t spend all your time cramming for SAT/SAT II/ACT/other classes.</p>
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<p>Agreed … that’s what life is for isn’t it? To explore!</p>
<p>Admissions officers know that people take up new hobbies throughout their lives. Even when students take up 5 new activities as seniors to try to impress adcoms, it probably doesn’t hurt them. Adcoms aren’t going to punish people for trying something new. However, taking up a lot of activities senior year to impress adcoms probably doesn’t help applicants either because the relatively few colleges that consider ECs as part of admission aren’t likely to be impressed by memberships. The students who stand out in their pool have done more than joined organizations.</p>
<p>[.quote] Adcoms aren’t going to punish people for trying something new. However, taking up a lot of activities senior year to impress adcoms probably doesn’t help applicants either because the relatively few colleges that consider ECs as part of admission aren’t likely to be impressed by memberships. The students who stand out in their pool have done more than joined organizations. [./quote]</p>
<p>Actually…from what I’ve heard, ECs are really quite important to a lot of colleges. I mean, lots of people can get stellar GPA/SAT scores, but now ECs are considered indispensable to a college app- a lot of the threads on this website are a testimony to that 
Thanks for the reassurance everyone, I think I was just overreacting there a little bit :)</p>
<p>ECs can be important, but the quality of EC is more important than quantity. It’s about what you accomplished in the EC and how it affected you and others that matter, not the list on the application. I think what Northstarmom meant was that just joining bunch of clubs in senior year it’s pretty pointless, because it doesn’t show colleges the desirable qualities they want (commitment, empathy, time management/organizational skills, leadership etc) and it doesn’t show any talent. It just means that you know how to put your name on a sign up list and show up to a meeting once in a while. Being a member of a club adds little boost to you application; being leader/founder of a club, actively and regularly participating and contributing, winning awards for your ECs etc is what colleges are really looking for. Resume padding (which is what joining a bunch of club senior year would really look like) is not welcomed.</p>
<p>ECs are importantly to a relatively small amount of colleges. Public universities are generally stats heavy, and third/fourth tier private universities (or public) don’t really put much emphasis on ECs either. That only leaves top tier private universities and LACs, which is a small number out of over 2000 four year institutions in the US. ECs just seem to be important to a lot of colleges on CC because most people who visit this site are striving for top tier schools.</p>
<p>It’s just like Moosey says, extracurriculars are far more important at the top/elite/selective schools that most CC students are aiming for, but at the vast majority of colleges in the U.S. one or two extracurriculars are absolutely fine. Most schools don’t care whether you have 5 or 1500 community service hours – they are very likely to be impressed by the latter, but if you have decent grades and test scores that match their average students’, write a good essay and have solid recommendations, you’re likely in.</p>
<p>But yeah, you shouldn’t just do things because you think it will look good on an application (and you shouldn’t NOT do things you really want because you think it would hurt you, unless they’re illegal or something). If you love crew, do crew!</p>