Am I screwed if I have almost no extracurricular?

Applying to College
1

<p>I did lots of internships and volunteering during the summer and did piano during the school year but that was it. Will I have a chance in like the top 50 schools? <em>Based on US News Top Colleges</em> <a href="http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/brief/t1natudoc_brief.php%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/brief/t1natudoc_brief.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>GPA: 3.89
WGPA: 4.70</p>

<p>SAT: CR 690, W 650, M 800 (Probably not taking it again)
SATII: Bio 740, Chinese 800, Math IIC 800, Chemistry in October
AP: Bio 5, NSL 4, Computer Science AB 5, Calculus BC 5, World History 5</p>

<p>I have a couple of awards for piano and grades but nothing else. I got 580+ hours of SSL so I'm happy with that. I am taking like mostly science and math classes because I want to be a doctor and my school has a program that provides advanced, in-depth programs on science, computer science and math.</p>

<p>So, what does everyone else think?</p>

2

<p>Those kind of are ECs, dude. Internships, volunteering, and piano. They may not be the best ones, but if you’re applying to schools like Caltech or MIT then it really won’t matter as long as your math/science is strong.</p>

<p>Oh, and screw the US News stuff, kid. Nothing good ever came out of that skewed POS, in my opinion. Choose the colleges that rock, damn it.</p>

3

<p>Yea, for certain things #70 or something may be better than #30.</p>

4

<p>what about someone who is in various EC’s (not a crazy amount though) but isn’t like (all those other kids who went to africa to help the poor and have state medals in sports and are presidents of various clubs… etc >_>)</p>

5

<p>State level is fairly deep.</p>

<p>Also, in response to the OP, internships and volunteering are definitely considered ECs.</p>

6

<p>EC’s are overrated, only the really “elite” schools care. At a good state school like U of I or Wisconsin, it’s 99% academic stats.</p>

7

<p>“true dat”
<em>cough</em>
did I just type that..</p>

8

<p>Top 50? Certainly. I had very little in the way of ECs (two years MUN, some volunteer work, and two different clubs for one year each), and less impressive stats (at least in SAT and GPA numbers, but good AP standings), but still got into Case Western, which is 41st this year, and was 38th the year before.</p>

9

<p>you can easily get into a top 10 public school with little to no ECs if you have decent # stats</p>

10

<p>Aren’t most schools look more and more for diversity and ECs over the past few years though? I mean the schools have been fiddling around with admission requirements to make some schools harder and harder to get in.</p>

11

<p>In general, public universities, including those in the top 50, rely on your state of residence (with in-state being preferable) and stats, not ECs when making admission decisions. ECs may be used by them for determination of merit aid.</p>

<p>The exception to this is recruited athletes, whose athletic ECs may allow students who normally would be rejected to be accepted by the public universities.</p>

<p>When it comes to the private universities, the closer one gets to the top of the most competitive colleges lists, the more ECs count. That’s because places like HYS have such an overabundance of applicants with high stats that they can afford to make admissions decisions that weigh ECs strongly.</p>

12

<p>I applied to University of Illinois without even filling in the EC page. I have decent stats, 34 ACT/4.1 weighted GPA. This should be a good experiment.</p>