<p>As son starts undergraduate education in EE at A&M, I was wondering how important are ECs (volunteering / leadership skills etc) to getting admission to a good graduate school? Do they even care or are they completely focused on academic things such as GPA, course rigor, research and GRE scores? </p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>He has a lot of free time in his freshman and sophomore year schedule because he took a lot of AP courses. So, he cannot take upper level engineering courses until he finishes ENGR 111 & 112 and his math sequence courses. So, any suggestions what he should be doing with his free time? Mid-term grades are a couple of 100s, a 99 and 98 so I am not sure he can do much more with the course work. What should he be doing? He was thinking of volunteering, teaching math, starting next week. Also, getting involved with the investing club and chess. However, what could he be doing to build his resume for graduate school in engineering? Any ideas? </p>
<p>Okay, tell me what did you guys do when you were engineering freshmen and sophomores? </p>
<p>thanks.</p>
<p>Unless those extracurricular activities relate somehow to what they do academically, graduate schools won’t care. What they care about is whether or not they have reason to believe you will be a effective researcher and be able to handle that coursework. If your hobbies support that, then they may help. If not then they won’t really matter.</p>
<p>
Well, realize that there is no one standard by which grad applications are judged… but there are going to be very few programs that really care about any EC’s unless they directly correspond to other field-related achievements. For example, helping out at a homeless shelter won’t do anything for his chances, but joining an engineering society and using that experience to explore a field and get started in research will.</p>
<p>
Yeah, pretty much those things. </p>
<p>Really, there are lots of small things he can do - tutoring others, field-related clubs, try to get in on some research, knock out some general-education credits, etc - but some of those are really hard for freshmen and will not necessarily pay off come admissions time. AP credits only do so much, he is still constrained by his engineering knowledge at this point, and he is right at the very beginning.</p>
<p>Most research labs won’t touch him (his skill level makes him more of a hindrance than a help), so I would suggest two things. First, tutoring - helping others through the coursework will help to reinforce it for him, which may help him down the road. Second, academic clubs - while he will probably start off doing skut-work, it is the best exposure he is likely to get right now and can position him for better things when he has more engineering coursework under his belt.</p>
<p>I would avoid pursuing “leadership” right now. He needs to show he can follow first, and as a college freshman there is not going to be much he can lead.</p>
<p>Thank you both. </p>
<p>@cosmic fish. </p>
<p>He has found a few places where he can volunteer as a math tutor. </p>
<p>He is currently taking 12 credits a semester as a freshman. He knocked out his gen.ed requirements with APs, except for a couple of gen. ed. courses that he is saving for sophomore year. He needs these for sophomore year to make sure he doesn’t fall down to part-time status and become ineligible for his scholarships.</p>
<p>On the other hand, he cannot take more 24 credits in freshman year because his scholarship does not allow him to graduate with more than 158 credits (30 over the curriculum of 128).</p>
<p>So, he is looking for fun things to do that do not increase his credit count. I will tell him to explore academic clubs. Thanks.</p>
<p>Tell him to look into the different research groups that are run by the department. He should pick a topic that interests him and go talk to one of the professors about getting involved in undergraduate research.</p>
<p>Thank you noleguy</p>
<p>Agree that tutoring/teaching are probably the most accessible relevant ECs at the frosh level. Research would be the main target. Major-related employment during summers might help a bit. Major-related ECs (solar car challenge?) might help a bit. Joining engineering clubs might help him find out about some of these things.</p>