Extracurricular help!

Applying to College
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Hi there!

So I am a junior in high school right now in a high school of about 2000 students. So far, I think I have a pretty good resume going into college applications for next year, but the number on thing that I am concerned about is extracurriculars.

For reference to my situation, I am a 16 year old male, planning to go into engineering (mechanical and aerospace are my main interests at the moment), and my school stats have been pretty good so far. I got a 36 composite score not superscored on the ACT, and as of now, I have a 4.0 GPA. I also will have taken probably 14 APs by the end of my high school carreer, with a few more honors and such.

However, when applying to top schools (which I plan on doing) I have consistently head that extracurriculars end up making a lot of the difference. As of now, my list of schools to apply to includes MIT, UC Berkeley, Stanford, Purdue, and UIUC, all top engineering schools. I have found myself more and more concerned with my lack of extracurriculars throughout high school. I haven’t really done anything especially notable. I run varsity track and cross country, am in NHS, and have only joined a few clubs this year (with no large leadership positions yet). I also work at a small grocery chain in my state, and volunteer with Special Olympics.

Will extracurriculars screw me over when I try to apply to some of the more prestigious colleges on my list? How much do they really matter? What can I do to improve them?

Thanks so much for any help!!

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So…you have listed a number of extra curricular activities here…all of which are fine. The only one that really isn’t particularly notable is NHS. But working a job, volunteering with special Olympics, two sports? Those are terrific. And not everyone who applies to top schools is the president of the clubs or captain of the sports team.

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I agree with @thumper1. I think that you are doing very well.

A job is a very valid EC. You do not need a long list of ECs. Do what you want to do, do it well, and be somewhere on the overlap between fair and kind in your dealings with others.

Make sure that you pay attention to your budget, and that you apply to at least one and preferably two safeties. Engineering is a major where there are lots of jobs and prestige is not important.

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