<p>In perhaps the majority of non-religious colleges, religious affiliation does not play a role in college admissions, but if one had a prominent leadership position or service in the church, would that be worth putting in the extracurricular activities section instead of lets say national merit commended or AIME?</p>
<p>"instead of"??</p>
<p>I don't know that but if it's significant to you, then place it there. Youth leadership in any organization is beneficial (well, unless it's the American Nazis or something... LOL)</p>
<p>National merit commended goes in the awards section.</p>
<p>The colleges that factor ECs into admission (and most colleges mainly admit based on stats. At most, they use ECs for merit aid consideration. The ones that most factor ECs into admission are places like HPYS who use ECs, too, because they have such an overabundance of high stat applicants) care about all sorts of ECs and leadership including those involving one's church. This is true for colleges that have no religious affiliation as well as those that do.</p>
<p>No. They don't care if you're an atheist, a Christian, A buddhist, or whatever. However, they do care how you spend your time and how you live your life. If you simply attend Church on Sundays, that really doesn't show much about you. However, if you do just a little bit more work, it shows that it's an interest of yours, and that you definitely spend time on it, as a seperate activity... The leadership is just another nice little boost.</p>
<p>Also, AIME qualifier would be an honor/award as well.</p>
<p>Northstarmom, stop saying that. ECs are very important at any selective school, not just the top ivies.</p>
<p>ECs are not very important at most selective schools. At most they are a tip factor or help students get merit aid. As one admissions officer said, good ECs "will revive the living, but won't raise the dead."</p>
<p>Virtually all schools select students by the students' gpa (by far the most important factor), scores, class rank, and coursework. What most colleges --including selective ones -- have to be concerned about is accepting students who are likely to graduate.</p>
<p>^ I have to disagree with Northstarmom on this one. D1 & I visited a lot of highly selective LACs this summer. The admissions officers all spent a LOT of time talking about ECs. And these were schools that do not give merit aid. </p>
<p>As one explained, they have a superabundance of applicants who are, frankly, well qualified to get in. So they need to use some criterion to decide whom to accept and whom to reject. This particular admissions officer clearly felt some anguish at having to reject so many well-qualified applicants, but he took consolation in the thought that they'd all get into very good schools---just not his. As he put it, "My job is to help put together a class that's diverse, balanced, and interesting. If you're not accepted, it's not a negative judgment on your qualifications; you just didn't fit into the class we were putting together." </p>
<p>And the way they make those determinations, once they've concluded you meet their threshold of academic quality, is by carefully considering your ECs and essays, to get a sense of "who you really are." They're not impressed by your checking off a box reflecting a certain number of service hours or number of clubs joined. They want to see what you really care about, how you choose to spend your time. As another admissions officer said, "I don't care if your passion is stamp collecting; I want to see what you're passionate about."</p>
<p>In that context, a deep commitment to your church, and a leadership position in it, is definitely something to include. It's just what they're looking for: something that tells them "who you really are." They may not share your religious convictions, but my guess is it wouldn't be a negative. Top colleges probably get their fair share of secular humanists and people who are not passionate about their religious convictions; if so, strong religious convictions might represent an element of diversity that some may find attractive, and leadership in almost anything is a plus. But you just don't know; it's going to depend on the particular school, the particular people on the adcom, and who else they're looking at that year.</p>
<p>I think you're looking too much into what Northstarmom means about "selective." A school with a 50% acceptance rate (which, in the grand scheme of colleges, is rather low, since half are rejected) is considered "selective." At the ultra-selective colleges--including LACs--ECs are a big consideration. I'd say the more selective the school is, the more it's going to take into account ECs. Thus, top 10 schools will care a lot about ECs; top 10-20 as well, but probably not as much; and so on. (Though the divisions are not necessarily in tens.)</p>
<p>However, not all qualified students with 4.0s and 2300+ get into those top 10 schools. Oftentimes, there are people with slightly lower grades and SAT scores, who supplant these rejected but more academically qualified students. BUT this is PROBABLY due to Affirmative Action, more outstanding ECs, or adcoms having a bad or really good day when reading your file.</p>
<p>A quote about EC importance from an admissions officer at a selective school (keeping in mind that most schools that anyone on CC would be considering would be selective. "Selective" doesn't just mean HPY, but about 300 top schools in the country).</p>
<p>"As dean of admissions at Texas Christian University, Ray Brown sees evidence of over-scheduled kids every day.</p>
<p>"It’s happening here like it’s happening at a lot of selective schools in this country," he says. "If you read the popular press, you read that all this over-scheduling will lead to admission at the school of your choice."</p>
<p>That, however, is a myth, Brown says.</p>
<p>"If you are part of the great middle underneath that bell-shaped curve — not the 1 or 2 percenters, the world-class musician, the world-class dancer, the world-class athlete — but everybody else, it really doesn’t matter if you’re scheduled to the gills. That’s not going to overcome a mediocre transcript."</p>
<p>In particular, Brown says he sees too much prepping for standardized exams. "If a kid would spend as much time on Algebra II as prepping for the SAT, that kid would be an A student in Algebra instead of a B student."</p>
<p>For the vast majority of students, Brown says, the transcript is the most important thing. If the college admissions decision is on a scale of 100, the transcript counts for 50 or 60. Test scores count for an additional 20.</p>
<p>"Just because you were second-team all-district in soccer, terrific for you, but that’s not going to get you into a selective college," Brown says.</p>
<p>"If you read the popular press, you’d believe it is so difficult to get into college. But the vast majority of schools are admitting well over 70 percent of their applicant pool."</p>
<p>But — and it’s a pretty big but — it is getting increasingly difficult to get into the top 300 schools in America. TCU is one of those. In 2000, the university had 4,800 applicants for nearly 1,500 freshman class slots. This year, it was 12,200 applicants for a class of 1,625.</p>
<p>And it’s becoming darn near impossible to get into the country’s top 100 schools, the really selective universities like Harvard and Rice.</p>
<p>"With their applicant pool, the students all look alike," Brown says. "They all have 4.0 GPAs, all have fabulous test scores, all have taken six AP courses their junior and senior years. That’s when the r</p>