Hey everyone, junior here. I know that Key Club on this website is regarded as trite and unoriginal, but what if you accomplished something with it?
My main ECs are based on science and physics, but I’m the editor of our school’s Key Club and I’ve gotten several of my articles published in the regional newsletter. This, in fact, helped our club win 1st place for best club in our entire region. I really do love this club and I wouldn’t want to see the hard work I’ve put into it all be for nothing…
I really don’t understand why it wouldn’t be. I’m part of Key Club too (holding an office position), and the officer’s from other schools that I have met showed a clear passion for service that the club developed. Also, as long as you show somehow in your application that you were a very active member, it’ll give you an appearance of being more than one dimensional as a STEM kid. People on this website seem to hate people who say that they’re in Key Club because it’s obvious that they’re just doing it to pad their application, but if you have a passion for it, let it show through your app because clearly it is a big part of who you are.
I was very involved in Key Club (actually we were Keyettes, do they still have that?), back when I was in high school. In my experience it was a service oriented club that did a lot in our local community. If you are very involved in the service aspect of the organization then I think that is meaningful and valuable. When you wrote that you had accomplished something in Key Club, I was expecting some successful service project that you had organized. I am a bit confused about your reference to being editor, and writing articles. Helping your club win an award by writing articles isn’t the type of accomplishment that I was expecting. Service is about helping people, not winning awards. If you had helped your club win an award by organizing an amazing successful project, then that would be an accomplishment. FWIW, the club I was in didn’t write articles, didn’t have an editor, and didn’t win awards, we just did service projects… Assuming your hard work helped your community then it was not for nothing.
Anything you do where you make a real contribution is meaningful.
@me29034 Well, the reason we got best club was because of our service for our community! The articles detail what kind of service we do, how we’re getting high schoolers truly (and not superficially) involved in volunteering, etc. So the awards and published articles were just a side effect of our service.
And I totally agree with your point!
my D will happily be listing her Key Club efforts on her applications. I think people caution that it shouldn’t be your only EC, but that doesn’t sound like it’s the case, so I think you’re all good. 