ECs and Awards, evaluation & question

Applying to College
1

<p>What do you guys think of my extracurricular activities and awards? If you look at item EC #3, should I include that? I don't really do any work for it. It's just me donating computer time to run the F@H program from Stanford, which simulates proteins folding to find cures for diseases. Also, I signed up for some new clubs this year. Should I list those on here? I'll only be doing them for one year. Would it look like padding? How would I go about listing these on my CommonApp (it only allows room for six activities)? (I'm looking at UPenn SEAS early decision and other engineering schools.)</p>

<p>Extracurriculars:

[quote]

  1. Daedalus/Yearbook|Editor, Academics Section Head, Community Section Head, 10th Grade, 11th Grade, 12th Grade
  2. NJIT Chemistry Olympics|Co-Founder of School Team, 10th Grade, 11th Grade
  3. Folding@Home Distributed Computing|Position 32 on AMD Team
  4. Raider Robotics|9th Grade, 11th Grade, 12th Grade
  5. Volunteering at St. Peter's University Hospital|Over 50 Hours, 10th Grade, 11th Grade, 12th Grade
  6. Banner/Newspaper|Editor, 9th Grade, 10th Grade, 11th Grade, 12th Grade
  7. Compsupportforums.com|Moderator, 10th Grade, 11th Grade, 12th Grade
  8. French Club|9th Grade, 10th Grade, 11th Grade, 12th Grade
  9. Star Program (Tutoring)|40 Hours, 10th Grade
  10. Key Club|10th Grade, 11th Grade

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Awards & recognition:

[quote]
St. Peter's Service Award
National Honor Society
French National Honor Society
Governor School Nominee
AP Scholar with Honor
Ramp Riot Champions, 2005
Pennsylvania Annual Robotics Challenge Champions, 2005
South Carolina GM Industrial Design Award, 2005
South Carolina Regional Finalist, 2005
NJ Regional Delphi "Driving Tomorrow's Technology" Award, 2005
Pennsylvania Annual Robotics Challenge Champions, 2007
New Jersey Regional Champions, 2007
New Jersey Regional General Motors Industrial Design Award, 2007
3rd at Galileo Championships, 2007
Daedalus 2006, Jostens Lookbook (Senior section) recognition

[/quote]
</p>

2

<p>It's really pointless to ask about these very specific awards -- the majority won't know how distinguished they make you, etc. Just by glancing over it, they look very good.</p>

3

<p>Thank you. Can anybody give me their opinion and answer the questions I posed?</p>

4

<p>Could you please go into a little more depth about these two ECs:</p>

<ol>
<li>Folding@Home Distributed Computing|Position 32 on AMD Team</li>
<li>Compsupportforums.com|Moderator, 10th Grade, 11th Grade, 12th Grade</li>
</ol>

<p>They feel like fluff to me, but I'm not 100% sure and would like to know what they entail.</p>

5

<p>Definitely don't list the clubs you start this year. And since you only have space for 6 ECs, use the ones you spend most of the time and also don't list EC 3 if you are not deeply involved. What if that comes out at the interview?</p>

6

<p>For 7, I'm on the forum staff. I'm a moderator and I usually spend 15 to 20 minutes looking over posts and making sure no one is breaking forum rules. It's a genuine EC and I can show my interest in computers and just with that. As for the Folding@home stuff, basically you run a program on your computer that simulates proteins folding and misfolding to find cures for diseases. There really isn't any involvement other than letting that program. I could remove it, but I've been doing it for a while and have accumulated points.</p>

7

<p>I wouldn't list the forum thing as an EC unless you are very heavily involved in that and run the website or something. Neither would I list the Folding@Home thing, you aren't doing anything, just leaving a program running on your PC. Also, did you just not list them or do you have no athletic-related ecs?</p>

8

<p>I don't have any athletic-ECs. I just don't have time for that stuff. The thing about the Compsupportforums.com thing is that I also do regular posts about Unix-like OSes since I'm part of that support team as well.</p>

9

<p>If anyone is curious, that's what it is:</p>

<p><a href="http://folding.stanford.edu/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://folding.stanford.edu/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>