<p>Are Extracurricular activities important? My school provides a minimal, and I am never interested in any of them.</p>
<p>Could doing more community service replace EC?</p>
<p>What year are you? What schools are you considering?</p>
<p>Surely you must be interested in <em>something</em>. I've turned being a sysop on Wikipedia and blogging from a Singaporean student's perspective about linguistics and math curriculum reform (a blog that also had MIT, Stanford, etc. graduates as writers) -- activities I had passion for -- to EC's. I turned my competitive chess play into an EC. </p>
<p>Don't like any of the EC's at your school? Create one. That will show leadership.</p>
<p>Depends on the school</p>
<p>An EC is anything organized outside of the classroom. Get a part time job, go volunteer -- these are ECs too.</p>
<p>Extracurriculars show that you are a well-rounded and interesting individual. They don't replace academics and test scores, but they are still an important part of the application.
That said, I agree with you--I think it's stupid to spend time doing something you aren't interested in just for colleges. However, as galoisien suggested, you could create a club that you <em>are</em> interested in.</p>
<p>Also, you could join activities outside of school. Community service is important, but you could also join a youth group or start a book group or teen knitting group or a frisbee team--or whatever else you're interested in. It doesn't have to be through your school either. There's a knitting group and book groups through my local library. There are youth groups at different churches and through the community center. My friends got a group together and just started a frisbee team because they love frisbee. There's so much you can do--you just have to look for opportunities and be willing to take a leadership position (especially if your school doesn't offer many opportunities).</p>
<p>A part-time job counts as extracurricular too? Hey, cool.</p>
<p>At the beginning of my sophomore year, I had a similar problem. Sure I was doing the plays and the musicals, but outside of that I had very little EC wise. In my mind there were two things lacking in our middleschool/highschool, and those were a solid drama department for our middle school and a Model UN club at our high school. As a junior I am now the director for the middle school drama club (a group which I founded as well), and I am the founder of the Model United Nations club at my school. On top of that I got a part-time job and got involved in a couple volunteer organizations. </p>
<p>Creating clubs is a lot of fun, and I think it will really show leadership and determination. It is also nice to leave a footprint if you will on your school that you can look back at 10, 15 years from now and say "wow, I really accomplished something that stood the test of time."</p>
<p>EDIT: But if you aren't interested in those types of endeavors, you can look into stats based schools, like most state schools, and I'm sure you won't have much of a problem with your lack of EC's.</p>
<p>To answer your question quite concisely - hell yes.</p>
<p>Yes, quite a bit too. At least 13-15% of your application. Colleges want to see you did something outside of class, and that you're passionate about whatever you're doing. Though essays can recs are used for character, personality, maturity, and attitude, EC's can show that as well, and also show colleges passion and uniqueness.</p>
<p>To put it in simple words, they're quite important.</p>
<p>I'm considering UCLA right now..</p>
<p>Does UCLA require a lot of good EC's?</p>
<p>From what I've gathered, all the good schools look for either extremely good academics, good academics and good EC's, or extremely good EC's. In other words, unless you are some sort of genius, EC's are important for UCLA too.</p>
<p>Try creating a club at your school. That would be a big plus because it would show you have leadership qualities.</p>
<p>I'm no genius alright. I may be an A student but I'm guessing that most people attending colleges are not bad themselves. I guess I'll just have to find myself some EC's.</p>
<p>Another problem: my school doesn't really provide AP classes, so when I fill in my college resume, what do I put in? Will I be put at a slight disadvantage?</p>
<p>EC's won't be THAT important for UCLA, which is more interested in grades and scores. If you have no AP's, try self-studying them. It's not too awful. But try to get involved in some clubs, and activities on things you like.</p>
<p>I thought community service, and even work hours, along with clubs and all sorts of out-of-school activities counted as EC. It won't be that hard at all. </p>
<p>As for AP, I thought counselors usually note those to the colleges you are applying to. At least the counselors at our school usually give a pretty detailed description of our AP and IB offerings, so I'm expecting the same from yours.</p>
<p>This Summer, I'll (hopefully) have a job given by the SYEP program. Could I write that in my college resume?</p>
<p>And could going to the gym regularly be counted at an EC?</p>
<p>You can write pretty much anything in your college resume that makes you seem like a better and more interesting person.</p>
<p>What have you achieved at the gym?</p>
<p>ivychan,</p>
<p>I don't go to the gym. But I might consider doing it just so I can get an additional EC. Plus, I need to slim down a little anyways.</p>
<p>Can someone explain to me the process of the the transition from HS to College? I know it requires many tests, essays, and a lot of traveling. But how exactly is it done?</p>
<p>No, you probably shouldn't. It doesn't really affect anything, unless something really incredibly happened there.</p>
<p>Well you're supposed to get a good load of EC's by junior year, take a heavy course load by senior year, impress at least two teachers by senior year, etc.</p>
<p>You take your SAT sometime in junior year. Take it early and get it over with, fine.Take it the first couple of months your senior year is also okay. SAT II's happen around Junior and early Senior years. ACT happens junior year, typically. Do your college visits junior year, or after you get their acceptance letter later in senior year. </p>
<p>Write your college apps during the summer. That's good for your sleeping time early senior year, where typical achievers get around 2 hours of sleep each day and you could get about 5 or 6 if you don't procrastinate those apps. Hire a college counselor if you need one. </p>
<p>In November, generally most of the EA/ED are due. Make sure you get those to the counseling office 2 weeks before, or else counselors get super ****ed.
Jan/Feb are when most of the regular apps are due. </p>
<p>Then you sit around and wait for your admission/wait list/denial letter. </p>
<p>Is that okay?</p>
<p>What about essays? How many essays do I have to write? Which one should I put more time on? And what's the importance of each of these essays?</p>