<p>for anyone who plays chess, about how good would you have to be consider chess as a strong EC? I don't have a rating yet, but I can play at about the 2000 level, and I was browsing some college chess sites, and the highest I've seen is around 2200.</p>
<p>it’s an extremely relevant activity if the school has a competitive chess team, and you’re good enough to join. however, claiming to be able to play at the 2000 level might not be taken seriously. keep playing until you have an official rating, enter tournaments, contact chess clubs.</p>
<p>If you think you can play at 2000 ELO level and don’t have an official rating, I seriously don’t believe you.</p>
<p>Yup, don’t claim a rating unless it’s official. But no problem putting chess as an EC, especially if you have some other non-geeky ECs to go with it. It will show that you’re well-rounded.</p>
<p>But I seriously doubt that any school will care what your rating is. I was fourth board on my high school team, and my rating never got above 1760. I still put it down as an EC and got in everywhere I applied, so apparently it didn’t hurt. Much.</p>
<p>It’s not just ratings; ECs are important because they reveal who you are as a person. What life-lessons have you learned from your involvement in chess? Patience? Working toward a goal? Commitment? Passion? How have you grown as a person from this activity? Have you mentored a junior player? Have you taken a leadership role in a chess group/club?</p>
<p>Well, I have volunteered at a summer program the past 2 years, and one of the classes was chess. I’m going to write about how the program impacted me, and I’ll definitely talk about chess as well. I also started a chess club at my school, but my parents always worked so I really couldn’t play in chess tournaments. I’m going to be competing this fall though, so I’m sure I can get an official rating around that level. </p>
<p>@ noobcake - well obviously I don’t know for sure, but I have played people within 1900-2100 and I have had good results, so I’m assuming that I would fit into that range.</p>
<p>I don’t know why but there’s very little mention of chess here on CC. Teaching younger students in an organized manner is good. Once, in the time of the dinosaurs, I was waitlisted at Yale and I always liked to attribute it to my participation in chess.</p>
<p>^^It seems clear that you do play chess, based on your username. :)</p>
<p>Would an (official) 1850-ish ELO rating be something worthwhile to include on an app. or is it too low to merit any worth? I could otherwise just tell about my decent performances at tournaments…</p>
<p>J’adoube, dinos in 2008?
Given the excellent records kept by USCF it will be a matter
of minutes before the veil of anonymity on CC is shredded if we start
sharing starts about our national chess rankings. That I think may be an important
reason for less chess stats on CC. Also I find very few nationally ranked
([top</a> 10 @age 17](<a href=“The United States Chess Federation”>The United States Chess Federation)) chess players may have superlative academics to match;
there are a few dozen in the 11-100 range (mostly seem to be dominated by
Asian/E.European-origin) though.
videogames, anything that places you in top 100 by age is good.</p>
<p>OP, get yourself a free ICC account and play 15-0 games and see what
rating you get (add 100 points to arrive at a rough OTB rating). If you
indeed have a 2000 ELO say for example playing on ICC
you should try getting a real OTB rating because it will get you top 100
listing. If you do it now it may be in time for the October Supplement
(there is a 2 month delay).</p>
<p>Heading the Chess club at your School level shows leadership and winning
a championship or two shows the relative quality of your involvement.
Dwelling on a combative undertaking like chess for key essays to
schools that emphasize collaboration over competition may
not be the best of topic ideas in my opinion.</p>
<p>Let’s put it this way: In over 1300 posts this is the second time anybody makes any reference to my user name and chess. About the dinos, I’m a parent and old as the hills. :)</p>
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<p>I don’t want to discuss my essay topic very openly, but I’ll keep this in mind. I don’t intend to talk about only chess - I wish to talk about the program in general and how that affected me.</p>
<p>An EC does not have to be about a national ranking–as LasMa says, it’s about telling the schools what’s important to you, what interests and excites you, how you spend your time, and what you can offer to the class they are forming. If that is chess for you, you should include it.</p>
<p>Yeah, it’s legit.</p>