<p>What kind of ECs count? I've been reading here and seen people with grocery lists of ECs and others just say not good enough for the kind of colleges I'd like to go to.
Basically, up to now (rising junior), for my community service I've been baking and distributing baked goods to needy people, which doesn't sound great on an app but is really fun and fulfilling. I play the flute, though not particularly well (I'm not on any orchestras or anything, that's for sure). In school, there aren't a lot of clubs to be on without being appointed to them, but I've been a head of the poetry journal, had my work featured two years there, been featured in the litereary journal, and have been featured in the magazine multiple times. There are no sports teams in school (though I'm not a sports person anyway), and honestly, I'm not sure what the heck people want from me!
I'm considering an additional community service job/expanding my current one. If I do an additional one, I would probably work with special needs children, but I'm not sure if it will work out. But what can I do? I'm so lost!</p>
<p>Quality > quantity. The baking goods thing is pretty cool and it’s a decent EC.</p>
<p>The best ones and really only ones I have are that I did an internship for a US senator, I started my own business that has profited quite a decent amount, I did a foreign exchange to Germany, and I have played soccer for my school for 4 years and on other teams for 12 years. Which I think are all pretty stellar EC’s and good examples of what you can do!</p>
<p>1) Okay, I’ll just call up my US Senator. Easy.
(Even though, to be fair, that does sound cool. How did you do it?)
2) I have no interest/background in business.
3) For various reasons, I can’t do foreign exchange. (But I might do a ten-day program helping kids at an orphanage in an eastern European country.)
4) As I mentioned, no sports. I fall on my face.
I’d love to get an internship, but my school doesn’t support you at getting them until you’re a rising senior (they want you to be able to relax during the summer, though I don’t anyway as I work like a dog in July— and speaking of which, does four years of working in day camps with preschool-age children count?) And also, most internships I know of are in NYC, which doesn’t have a cheap, easy, or convenient transportation system to and from my home. I’m going to work on getting one this year, though.
Your ECs are obviously great, and they’re springboards for the imagination, but not that easy to emulate :(.
Good luck with your colleges and thanks so much for helping me out in my time of need!</p>
<p>I got an internship because my mom has worked for various congressman and senators for over 25 years. You can apply for them online but most want college students.</p>
<p>And yes working with kids is great, any job is great.</p>
<p>Thank you and you’re welcome :D</p>
<p>Find something you truly believe in. Community service is cliche and has been overused - it’s still good if you’ve got a passion for it, but if you’re doing it for college, save yourself the time and effort. There are numerous ways to get involved and it doesn’t have to be through your school. </p>
<p>You can do a web search for internships with companies near your city of residence. You can look up the local American Cancer Society office for Relay for Life opportunities. You can join the Junior Red Cross. EC’s don’t have to be through the school and the amount of time and effort you put into them correlate directly with your chances for admission. As in college, you have to be proactive in seeking out these opportunities. They’re there if you look, but they won’t just land on your doorstep.</p>
<p>I’m not looking for community service for college, just because my number of neccessary hours is increasing and I’m not sure if what I’ve got right now takes up enough. It might, but I want to err on the side of more. And I wouldn’t do something I didn’t enjoy.
I’ve decided that this year I’m going to look for an internship. I’d love one in publishing, and I live near NYC where you can probably intern in ANY area, but if I could intern in a psychology-related position it would be cool… Any ideas?
Either way I’d need to get one anyway, so being picky won’t help me.
But thanks for helping me out, guys! If anyone else has ideas or any sort of constructive advice, let me know!</p>
<p>Idealist website is loaded with internships. Ditto for Craigslist.</p>
<p>It isn’t publishing, but Gotham Writers Workshop (writing classes.com) teaches writing courses in NYC and online. They use interns, according to their website. I’ve actually taken a few classes and loved them. Staff is friendly and competent and I think would be good supervisors.</p>
<p>Theater companies and other arts organization couldn’t survive without interns and apprentices. I think Rockland County has (or used to have) at least one theater.</p>
<p>Tourist attractions are another possibility.</p>
<p>And don’t rule out paid jobs, even if you don’t think they sound impressive.</p>
<p>Colleges AREN’T looking for particular ECs from their applicants; they just want to see you involved and doing something you LOVE (key word) to do.</p>
<p>For me, community service was a BIG thing for me so I was part of a club called buildOn for 4 years where I volunteered all around the area and eventually went to Haiti to help build a school there (They’re all about literacy and stuff).</p>
<p>Theater was big too so I was a stage manager at a local theater festival and did theater at my school for all 4 years.</p>
<p>Same with music - part of a wind ensemble outside of school and band at school.</p>
<p>I also worked as a tutor/baby-sitter as well.</p>
<p>Bottom line is this: it doesn’t matter WHAT you do. I think the baking thing is great and working with special needs kids sounds great! All you need to do is to SHOW your passion to the admission team. On the outside, those baking cookies and other things you did might not sound amazing, but they probably have memories that could foster a very meaningful personal statement, you never know. Don’t do EC’s just because it looks “GOOD” for the college - they’ll know if you do. :)</p>
<p>Rising junior, has been baking. Probably a gal. Probably has fun and does it, oh, once or twice/month. Um, challenging? BUT, actually distributing to the needy is a whole 'nother level. Most kids are so intimidated by the needy they can’t do that. Even if you only delivered to a distribution point, where you then handed out goods, you can rethink the wording. See? </p>
<p>Working with special needs kids is another mostly girl thing. Again, how challenging? You have some impact or you just have fun? Not really the same as taking on some work adults would do- or where you work shoulder-to -shoulder with adults. Even better, if you somehow manage them. This is where ordinary, plebian community service works. Small organizations that distribute food, clothing or meals need help and you can often add responsibilities, show up on some regular basis.</p>
<p>Maybe you expand that baking thing, get another hs or two involved and recruit other kids, who bake and distribute. Now you’re “recruiting,” maybe training, maybe overseeing or managing.</p>
<p>Before you do a ten-day project in a foreign country, please do the same sort of hard work in your local community. Kids who pay enormous amounts to go somewhere else- and do not have the local equivalent effort- can stand out in the wrong way. Note that musiclover4 did this in his/her area first. </p>
<p>The idea is to show you can id a need and commit, over time.</p>
<p>lookingforward: Your post really did make me think. While the baking I do isn’t cookies, I do it weekly, and it’s actually bread (whole long story…)which can be pretty challenging, your point is well made. Though it’s actually not to the poor, but to elderly people. I was actually considering expanding it anyway, just because I have limited output and I’d like to up the scale, but I did start it and I would love to make it into a bigger operation.
While I haven’t done the work with special needs yet, I have limited experience with them in other areas and I have no illusions that it’s going to be fun or not labor intensive. I would be babysitting them one-on-one or helping in a group home, which I would imagine is not what anyone would consider fun and games. It would be fulfilling, though, and something I’d enjoy doing.
If I go to the program, I will be paying my own way with money I earned working in a summer camp being a counselor to preschoolers. It’s really just airfare, but I see what you said about starting at home.
I’m not trying to be defensive or anything, just thinking out loud :). But your points are well taken.
I do work, as I mentioned, but only in the summer. I’m also considering tutoring this year.
I really think I need to narrow my options down…
While the Gotham thing sounds cool, I think they mean college interns, which is kinda sad… But I’m going to check other ones out.
One of my friends actually got an internship at the Wall Street Journal, but she wasn’t able to take it :(. She was really annoyed.
Thanks so much everyone for your help! I’m keeping my ear out for any suggestions!</p>
<p>Hannah, I think you “get it.” :)<br>
Yay.</p>
<p>lookingforward: Thanks… though that whole diatribe I wrote just up there makes me feel a bit funny in the logical, reasonable part of my brain… but whatever.
Does entering Intel STS and possibly Dupont Challenge count as an EC or an extension of school? Do you need to win for it to be considered “exceptional”?
Ow, some more throbbing in that reasonable part of my brain…why am I still discussing this?</p>
<p>I like that you bake for the elderly. The elderly can be just as “needy” as the poor. I like looking forwards advice–very good as usual! Maybe you could add a college class in baking or on nutrition. Use what you learn to improve what you’re already doing. You might even be able to ask your school cafeteria people if you could use their kitchen and get a few more students to help. They might be able to give you some tips as well.</p>
<p>Don’t over think EC’s. Just keep developing what you love to do and take it to the next level.</p>
<p>Hananab-
The angle you should take is that you give them bread but also acknowledge their existence with a kind word and gesture to the elderly who tend to isolate themselves.</p>
<p>Yes, for the elderly is great. Love the fact that, while most kids would have a teacher or parent drive the goods somewhere, you are actually distributing. Find great way to describe this on the EC page and/or in one of the essays.</p>
<p>Usually, the power in Intel is getting to the top levels. Some dispute that even semi-finalist will carry much weight. If it would be a logical extension of your interests and STEM activities, you could certainly speak with teachers about it.</p>
<p>The “exceptional” isn’t always as CCers describe it. It can be through a pattern of small triumphs. Best of luck.</p>
<p>ps. If you do expand this, finding some funding somewhere (even from a handful of parents,) is grand. And, agree, the interaction.</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses! I really appreciate it.
I’m still working out the logistics of expanding, for instance, I’m thinking of recruiting friends to do it in their homes, etc. I’m definitely thinking about the personal angle as well, though I really don’t want anyone to get the impression I’m doing this for college, because I’m not. I’m really not like that, even if it doesn’t seem that way from my posts :(.
I will be doing Intel STS (my school has a cohort working on it) and possibly the Dupont Challenge if I can fit it into my schedule (because there’s also a cohort working on that and I don’t want to miss too many periods of class…)but I just want to know if it looks good or just normal, because my school is blowing a lot of hot air into the descriptions (not so many people enter, it’s a college-level paper so colleges know what you’re capable of, yada yada yada…).
Thanks, everyone!</p>
<p>A humanities kid (is that right?) dabbling in high level science competition, into poetry and writing, started a very valid EC, goes a bit beyond the minimum (social) effort most kids do in that- and is looking to expand her service? Hannah, it sounds good to me. Don’t underestimate yourself. You still have time to consider and polish.
You sound like a kid who thinks about various opps and weighs them. All good. </p>
<p>What counts is often the pattern the personal qualities that show through. What you are suggesting looks good. It sounds like you are bright, engaged and willing. </p>
<p>Don’t necessarily let the competition within hs set your limits in the colleges you may apply to.</p>
<p>im a rising junior too, i want to be an engineer, and i dont have a lot of ec’s, actually less than the thread statrer( hannah…). but i do have service hours at a local science museum, been going there for abouit two months now and will continue. other than that i am a really vigouous swimmer, which really doesnt mean anything for engineeering. what kind of ec’s can i do??? help me=)</p>
<p>It’s not competition with in my high school, it’s just that they’re probably overemphasizing the importance college-wise of participating in STS (especially because I’d probably do a social (read: soft, to them) science topic, which I would find really cool but never ever comes close to winning.
Yep, humanities— aiming for BA in psych, if not too crowded, otherwise English or history of some sort, MA/PhD in a psych-related field (school psychology, child psychology) or possibly special ed, or MD in psychiatry. Possible double major in early childhood ed.
Dream4Life: Just the general vibes I got from looking into all this (and before)? Do what you like, not what looks good. You love engineering, so you’re volunteering in a science museum. I love to bake and I deal well with the elderly, so I picked that. If you can join a swim team, do it if you like it. It doesn’t have to do with engineering (aside from what you’re doing already, what ECs have to do with engineering, unless you build robots or something?). Just what you like, and don’t let yourself stress about college.
My college-stressing is really just a summertime hobby because I’m just slightly bored, though I’ll never admit it :).</p>