Does title matter?

Applying to College
1

I am an upcoming senior and I recently became the vice president of a statewide club, and in the last term I was a secretary. Personally, I am very satisfied with being VP for a club, but I was wondering whether being president will raise your chances or not to go to colleges like UCLA compared to VP. This is my only leadership position for now, but I’ve been in tennis for 3 years and I will be rank 1 next year, along with being a league finalist this year to compete in CIF regional individuals. In addition, I volunteer at my local hospital every since 10th grade and I had 100+ hours of service since then. yet, i overall have much less leadership positions than my peers, but I am truly passionate in what I am currently doing. Along with my question about whether the differences between president and vice president matter for college admissions, will my extracurricular profile be too weak for a decent chance to make it into top UC’s like UCLA? I truly love my activities right now but I want to be aware of where I’m standing for my future.

Thank you for your time!

2

No

You are making the very common mistake of conflating leadership with leadership positions. AOs will not make that mistake.

3

Focus on impacting the organization. Bring about positive change. That’s leadership regardless of title. You can write about it in essays, describe it in the common app, etc.

4

try not to say

VP of StateClub

but

VP of State Club: 5 hours per week; Coordinated state wide competition of 200 members, including registration, procurring venue, organizing food/prizes.

State what you accomplished as the VP

5

What if the commenters said yes, P is much better than VP. What would you really do about it? Agree that accomplishments are more important than titles.

6

I agree with ‘bopper’ in comment #3. In addition, ECs should be considered as learning in informal settings (beyond the classrooms). There is no need to be concerned with the title of your position, instead, concentrate on writing the short, (but) substantive descriptive sentences about these ECs and outstanding essays, to convey: what you have learned from your ECs; how your ECs have sparked your intellectual inquiries; the connections that you see between ideas in your everyday life and what you have learned, whether formally in classrooms or informally in ECs.