<p>Hi</p>
<p>I'm not familiar with U.S. applications, and would like to ask some questions about what is valued most at top colleges. I'll be trying to transfer (international) after first year. </p>
<p>The thing I'd like to know about are the extra-curricular activities. Such a thing doesn't exist in my home country (Serbia) or England (Cambridge). If I get almost perfect SAT1 and SAT2 results, and get almost best grades at college, as well as write a cool essay, is that enough for getting in? </p>
<p>I don't have any community work, clubs organised, music groups, newspapers stuff or things like that, as I said they don't quite exist here. I have sports, but do they actually care about that? I mean it all seems quite irrelevant compared to outstanding academic results.</p>
<p>Sports do count as extracurriculars. England definitely has extracurriculars like that (if you were implying that they don’t? I’m not sure). You might want to look through the past decisions of the “top schools” you’re interested in on this forum–there are a lot of international students here. (They’re called results threads, usually, sometimes decisions threads, and are located in each college’s specific forum.)</p>
<p>Grades, scores, class rank are what’s valued most by all colleges. However, top colleges get such an overabundance of students with high stats that those colleges can pick and choose from among those outstanding students the ones who’ll most contribute to creating an active campus that is diverse in all ways. Thus, country of origin, extracurriculars, possible major, race, religion, socioeconomic background all can influence whether a student is admitted to a tippy top college.</p>
<p>Uhm, @Lirazel, Cambridge undergrad application doesn’t even have a section on extracurriculars, the only place where one can mention such activities is his personal statement (4000 words, and the only essay required for the WHOLE application). </p>
<p>@Northstarmom Can I just participate in the activities connected with my major? Doing community work seems really stupid to me, like helping old people and stuff.</p>
<p>It’s always wisest to participate in activities that you’d enjoy, whatever those activities are. Whether or not they boost you into a top college, you’ll still develop skills that will serve you well for the rest of your life, and you’ll learn more about your interests and strengths.</p>
<p>The colleges don’t care whether the activities are related to your prospective major. Most students in the U.S. change majors at least twice while in college. What the top colleges do care about, however, is what you accomplished with the activities you were involved in. Simply being a member or being an officer who does only what their advisor tells them to isn’t going to impress top colleges. They’re looking for the relatively rare students with the creativity, passion, and assertiveness to have an impact on organizations and others. </p>
<p>No, you don’t have to do community service if you have no interest in it. However, community service encompasses a lot of things including, for instance, tutoring disadvantaged kids; fundraising for nonprofit organizations connected to issues and concerns that you may care about; volunteering with political campaigns; participating in environmental clean-ups; providing foster care to injured wildlife; etc. </p>
<p>If a person really has no interest in helping others in any way (and that help wouldn’t need to be done via community service), they probably aren’t the type of person whom a top college would want to admit.</p>