Does having a nonprofit in high school look good?

Applying to College
1

<p>Please read all of this, I would like some honest opinions. Thanks.</p>

<p>I am a junior in high school, and my school has a class that allows us students to group together (group of 5 in my case) to create a non profit and raise money for a cause. This is possible because the public school I go to is considered a non profit, so we don't have to register our organizations since the money goes through the school. I am in a group that has chosen to provide relief to victims of an uncommon disease in Asia. We only have around $500 raised, but I probably wouldn't report that to colleges. Next year I will ask for a letter of recommendation from the teacher that runs the class, I am trying to put emphasis on this in my applications. Is running a nonprofit in high school impressive or unique? I will graduate college with a ~3.6 GPA, and I have very average ECs. That GPA is not where I will want it to be for the colleges I will be applying to. My high reach school is University of Chicago, and I will be applying to some nice midwestern LACs that excel in International Studies (Most notably Macalester College). I know Mac is a very international school, so I'm hoping the organization will hold a lot of weight when they review my application. So, sorry for this block of text, but being completely honest, is having a nonprofit organization that is benefiting Asia something that will look unique, something that would possibly allow the admissions to overlook my relatively weak GPA? Also, another thing, it costs $20 a month to keep our website running, I am not sure how I can keep the site running without having to pay that. I want to put the website on my application, I feel if it is not on my application, then it will not have as much credibility. I know I most likely will not get into my dream school University of Chicago. Macalester College is my #2 choice, and I really want to get in there for International Studies. As I said above, they are a very international school with loads of international students, but they also stress volunteering while in college, so I think they will think highly of having the organization on my application. Maybe it sounds bad and desperate to ask if something "looks good", but I am certainly desperate to make up for my average resume.</p>

<p>THANK YOU FOR READING THIS!</p>

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<p>Sounds like a great thing to do and it sounds like you’ve learned a lot. Impressive to colleges? Not so much. This is essentially a class project for which you built a website and raised a modest amount of money. Doesn’t sound it was terribly complicated to do, or that it’s taken up a vast amount of time, or something you are so passionate about that you plan to continue into college.</p>

<p>I wouldn’t count on it making up for your GPA, but, depending on how you sell it, it sounds like a great essay topic.</p>

<p>FWIW, a classmate of my D’s founded a non-profit to raise money for blind kids in Tibet. Yale was unimpressed.</p>

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<p>Why aren’t you able to pay the $20 to keep the website going? Can’t you use the funds raised for that operating expense? So you don’t intend to commit to this venture and keep it going? Then it is just a class project for one semester, is nice, but not memorable.</p>

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<p>$20 a month for a high school student is not ideal, and we haven’t raised very much, so using our money would defeat the purpose. I am just trying to make it the main point of my application, since my ECs suck.</p>