I’m worried that my extracurriculars are dragging my application down. I am currently a junior and here are my ECs:
Cross Country (trying for varsity next year)
Quiz Team
Volunteer with church over the summers
NHS
Work at Chick-fil-a
Math team 9th and 10th grade (quit because of issues with the sponsor)
Study finance and the stock market intensively outside of school, am going to try and start a club senior year
On climbing team at local gym freshman and sophomore years, qualified for nationals in speed climbing sophomore year
Btw I want to go to Georgia Tech. MIT, Columbia, and Stanford are my reach schools. Any input would be greatly appreciated- what can I do to improve, and what are your opinions on a finance/stock market club? Thanks!
I will also be taking part in two leadership camps/internships this summer and will hopefully gain valuable skills and experiences from those.
I think you have a good chance though I would suggest to enter some more competitions in fields your interested in.
Stanford is more of a crapshoot. Kids from my school are either super qualified or random students who only got into Stanford and our state school. It’s so wack that nothing can be predicted, but all those students were sincere/ authentic/ compelling people, even if they didn’t have the best-standardized test score or ECs. I think your ECs then are fine just as long as you can express why these particular ECs matter to you and have helped you grow as a person. Be unconventional in how those ECs connect and convey a story. This is more important than having resume padding ECs or positions.
I’ve learned that for these types of schools (w/ the exception of HYP), it’s not what you have “accomplished” but if you portray yourself as a sincere/ authentic applicant.