ECs

Pre-College Issues High School Life
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<p>Some questions if anyone could help me out:</p>

<p>1-I'm looking into starting a Model UN at my school. To any model UN members; can any of you tell me how your meetings are run/how often/blah blah. To fellow club starters; how much did starting a club at your school entail? Who was the first one you went to to help you out?</p>

<p>2-Would running for president my junior year look like I was going for a "laundry list?" I really want to do it but not if it will look fake on an application. This would be my first year "officially" in the student gov. but I have been "unofficially" affiliated for the past 2 years.</p>

<p>3- Does it look bad if your only clubs and activities are all either sports related or volunteering? I'm involved in all of them at a fairly distinct level, but I don't know if colleges want "academic" things too. I'm starting Model U.N. (hopefully) because I recently went to a conference and enjoyed it very much. Would joining like debate as a junior look bad? I mean, I would not be joining anything i didnt WANT to take part in, but I don't know if it will look like I'm just trying to rack up points ya know?</p>

<p>THANKS</p>

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<p>I started a ping pong club at my school, and all I needed to start it were just a few administrative things:</p>

<p>1) Teacher Sponsor
2) Statement of Purpose
3) Rules and Regulations
4) Club meetings and locations (lol play in the gym on Wednesday mornings)
5) Principal's approval</p>

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<p>Thanks Turbotw.</p>

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<p>bumpppp (10char)</p>

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<p>bump pleaseeee???? anyone else???</p>

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<p>BUMP! cmon everyone, please?</p>

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<p>Don't worry about all that stuff about college admissions. And I know a kid at my school, who got into Wash U., who had ECs only as sports and volunteering. </p>

<p>My English teacher started our MUN club freshman/sophomore year. At my school, there needs to be enough expressed interest in the club before they even make it "official" because of budgets and spending; maybe that's just my school, but even before make sure people are interested! Did anyone go to the conference with you? </p>

<p>The first step once you get the club would be to recruit. Have your teacher sponsor ask some students in their classes, or I bet if you ask some social studies teachers to recruit, I'm sure they'd be happy too. You'd want to do that pretty early, with club dues and what not. </p>

<p>First year MUN is ALOT of work. We were fortunate enough to have our first real conference ran by just about the greatest group of guys ever, who were really helpful in "breaking us in" and what not. Keep in contact with the Secretary Generals of your conferences! And don't go to a huge/elite conference your first time. You'll get lost in the herd, and it would be difficult in really trying to work with the Secretariat. Unless you're all very adventurous, don't sign up for countries like North Korea, Israel, Iran, US, China the first time around. </p>

<p>We JUST drafted our club charter after 3 years of inception. Our meetings used to be about an hour long right after school in our advisors room, every Tuesday, but now we just leave whenever we're through the agenda. We now go by parliamentary procedure (i.e., making motions and points, with the president acting as the dais), but I wouldn't suggest that for a first year club. When time gets closer to conferences, we used to meet two times a week.</p>

<p>MUN is EXPENSIVE, especially if you travel far. Fundraising should be a big priority, unless you want everyone to pay 300$+ out of their own pockets. Also, really try to work as a club on your research, or else you might find every delegate interpreting foreign policy differently! Gah!</p>

<p>I know this is alot, ha....but if you have any specific questions, feel free to ask.</p>

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<p>THANKS HEMINGWAY! That post was VERY helpful.</p>

<p>Some questions:
Do your meetings just consist of picking a conference and preparing for them? What else do you discuss?
How difficult was it to "get educated" about the whole process? As a field trip, we went to a conference. Would that knowledge, along with the website, be enough to know what we had to do? I'm not sure if any teachers are really in the know about Model UN.
OK and one last one (for now sorry lol), how many people do you take to a conference? I think I'll be able to get a lot of people to join but I'm not sure how many people we can actually "bring to conference" for a team? How large is each country's team usually?</p>

<p>THANK YOU SO MUCH AND GOOD LUCK AT BRANDEIS (I looked up your stats lol im not a stalker)! I'm looking into that college myself!</p>

<p>Also, I know this is off topic but if I'm not mistaken, I think that I saw that (idk, instead of going to a dance or something) you rallied at DC for Darfur. How do you learn about this stuff because I would DEFF become involved. The only thing I've ever done was started a petition rallying against the banning of certain books in our district (we won!)(because I'm into the whole NCAC thing). Do you just hear about this stuff through other people or...idk? I'm sorta clueless when it comes to organized protests going on and I dont know how to become more in the know.</p>

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<p>We discuss fundraising usually at meetings, either new ideas or an update on revenue gained thus far. Usually it's conference stuff, especially because we have a hard time getting everyone at the meeting (work, rides, etc) so we always seem to need to go over things time and time again! We only go to two conferences a year, that's all we can afford, in December and April. Late December through early February we actually don't hold many meetings because there's nothing to discuss.</p>

<p>Simulations are also a good thing. Alot of really good schools do nothing but simulations, like practice. A group of us partcipated in a conference before we got a club and it helped in prep. Plus, it's pretty easy to know what to do an hour into the conference or so. But simulations are always a great idea. There are some good videos on the website, so if you guys have the money, I'd recommend buying them.</p>

<p>And you can bring as big as or as small as a delegation as you want the conference. We usually bring around 10 because we're a small club, but some schools bring 50 or so. At bigger conferences, the delegations get bigger. </p>

<p>For protests, rallies and stuff...some of it is word of mouth, especially bigger events (you'd hear about them on TV). But if you're looking for a specific cause, such as Darfur, poverty, fair trade, or even prisoners, websites for those causes will have info. Amnesty International always seems to have things going as well for just about every issue. </p>

<p>And thank you! yeah, I definitely can't wait to go to Deis.</p>