<p>I'm a sophomore in high school at the moment but I'm pretty concerned that my extracurriculars are not prestigious enough:</p>
<p>~ Science Bowl (10th grade)
~ Ecology Club (10th grade)
~ Newspaper (9th & 10th grade)
~ Warm up America (9th grade)</p>
<p>~ 100+ hours tutoring at local Saturday School</p>
<p>I do genuinely enjoy/am active in all the clubs I'm in (well, except for Warm up America which i quit) but I feel like they aren't enough to stand out in college applications. My father forced me to quit tutoring at the school this year, so this summer I'm hoping to apply for a tutoring job at Peer 2 Peer/Aristotle. My GPA and courseload are rather strong, and on a Practice SAT I got a 2180. I plan to take the real SAT this coming summer or early next fall, so hopefully I will improve/do better.
I really want to get into a top school like Tufts, Georgetown, NYU, Boston College, UPenn, or (superrrr reach) Yale. However, I feel like I really need to add to my extracurriculars to stand out. I know quality is better than quantity, but reading through these threads I have seen kids who work on presidential campaigns, have published science works, are captains of every possible sport or start their own clubs, and it makes my stats seem really...inferior.</p>
<p>Anyway, the main point of this post: What are some strong extracurriculars? If you have gotten into one of the aforementioned schools, what sort of activities did you do outside of school? Thanks for reading, please help me out :)</p>
<p>They’re good because you started early and they show commitment, but there is nothing that stands out. Depending on where you way to apply there may need to be a wow factor. Something that not only shows commitment, interest and reveals character but also is unique or very impressive. For example winning a regional or higher level tournament or golfing at the Masters; these are some examples from the extracurriulars of ivy students from my school. </p>
<p>But most importantly they need to be you. They need to speak you and you need to be really passionate because only then will you be able to write about them and really connect with the adcom. It doesn’t necessarily have to be super amazing, but it can help.</p>
<p>Try to get some leadership positions and if you stay with newspaper try to get some awards for your work. Honors are nice on your application. Go online if you can and look at a college application (or go online and look at the elks MVP scholarship application). Mentally put your stuff in there and you will see what gaps you may have. You don’t have to have everything but you don’t want a bunch of empty spaces either. Like already stated, ec’s that show a passion/consistency are good.</p>
<p>Thanks for your answers next year when I get my license my friend and I will join debate as a team (we can’t really right now because we would have to drive to all the meets and they’re too far away to go by bus) and I’m thinking of submitting some of my writing to the literary magazine at our school. This might be a little off topic, but while I’ve started this thread how many AP’s tend to stand out to colleges? Right now I’m in two, next year will be five and senior year I will be taking at least four more. I’m pretty interested in sciences, so would taking all those science AP’s (bio, chem, physics, environmental) give any sort of boost to my profile? Or is that pretty commonplace nowadays…</p>
<p>Try to aim for leadership positions. And remember, colleges like depth not breadth. Try to lead additional projects outside of the clubs that relate to your fields of interest – more than one activity would really help, and making them connect would be even better. I agree with previous posters that you might need more of a “wow” factor. Perhaps leading or creating a new project or initiative outside of school would be that. I’d be careful jumping into more disconnected, different activities, only because that lessens the depth you can gain in your passion. </p>
<p>Number of APs depend entirely upon your school. Colleges use rank as a measure of the rigor of your courses. Try to figure out how many APs you would need to be ranked higher.</p>
next year when I get my license my friend and I will join debate as a team (we can’t really right now because we would have to drive to all the meets and they’re too far away to go by bus) and I’m thinking of submitting some of my writing to the literary magazine at our school. This might be a little off topic, but while I’ve started this thread how many AP’s tend to stand out to colleges? Right now I’m in two, next year will be five and senior year I will be taking at least four more. I’m pretty interested in sciences, so would taking all those science AP’s (bio, chem, physics, environmental) give any sort of boost to my profile? Or is that pretty commonplace nowadays…</p>