<p>Fuchsia text is underrated. For the TL;DR-enabled version just read the last paragraph.</p>
<p>I was always told in middle school and early in high school that doing extracurricular activities and being well-rounded would "look good" on college applications. For the first two years of high school I believed this meant ECs were good additions to your resume but not really necessary. There were clubs I was interested in and I went to a few meetings, but I was a freshman as well as pathologically shy, so I quit doing clubs and told myself it wasn't necessary to do ECs as long as I had good grades. </p>
<p>Late in tenth grade I took the ACT for practice and my scores turned out higher than everyone thought they would be. My guidance counselor started telling me I could go to college anywhere I wanted (people are naive here) and that was when I started researching colleges and lurking on this website. I learned that ECs are Really Really Important for "top schools" and that being well-rounded is not the idea because you should demonstrate "passion." And people on here are annoyed when anyone asks how they can improve their ECs, because the idea is that they should come naturally from said passion, instead of from trying to construct a good resume. Sometimes people imply that if you don't have passion you're just a fake who doesn't deserve to go to a top school anyway. </p>
<p>As a result of not being enlightened until late sophomore year, I never did many* extracurriculars until junior year, and I only have one activity that could remotely be considered leadership. I'm not really talented enough to win competitions/awards, and I'm seventeen years old so I don't know enough about anything to be passionate about it without sounding all contrived. Is there anything I can do at this point, this summer or early senior year, to improve this? (I'm applying to a couple non-prestigious summer programs but I don't feel like asking my teachers to fill out a million boring recommendation forms.)
Obviously I'm not trying to go to Harvard or anything...I'm mostly trying to get into higher-ranked public schools like the University of Michigan. </p>
<p>*I understand the "quality over quantity" thing but it seems like I don't have much quality either.</p>
<p>What do you enjoy doing? Find a volunteer or paid position that enables you to put that interest to work. For example:</p>
<p>Like to read? Start a book discussion at a local assisted living facility or library. Or ask about a story hour at the local library. </p>
<p>Interested in the environment? Ask at your local extension office about projects you might be able to start or help out with.</p>
<p>Like pets? Start a drive for pet foods that can donated to the local food bank or office of the aging to help seniors and others keep thieir pets. Work with the local humane society or food bank to start that one, and contact churches or grocery stores or whoever could help serve as collection sites.</p>
<p>There is no step 2 BTW… Just do what you want to do - what YOU have an interest in. </p>
<p>If you apply to a school, and the AdCom / reader thinks your EC’s aren’t strong enough, deep enough, the right kind of EC etc… then the heck with them, you WILL wind up at a college that does appreciate what you have done. And i wouldn’t stress about leadership either - I have 2 kids admitted to highly selective schools - with NO leadership roles. </p>
<p>Which brings up Step 1 again… Good luck, and have some fun!</p>
And those people have no understanding of the history behind ECs or the way other Western countries select students for the top colleges. In many countries a score on an entrance exam determines who gets in their elite schools. Our system is incomprehensible to them; why would the top colleges not look for the top students?</p>
<p>But our system is no accident, and was designed for a malevolent purpose. In the 1920’s the Ivy colleges became concerned about the number of non-WASP applicants they were admitting looking at GPA or performance on the forerunner of tests like the SAT. So they instituted a system where interviews and recommendation letters and extracurriculars played a big role, sufficing to keep out the others (mainly Jews). ECs</p>
<p>This of course doesn’t help you; the system is the way it is. There is little you can do in the next 6 months that are going to turn you into a EC superstar. So you can bemoan your fate, or spend your time looking for colleges likely to accept you where you’ll find the challenge and environment that you want in college.</p>