<p>Hi!
Harvard is my dream college and I have a question about extracurriculars...
I was just wondering... is it okay if all my extracurricular activities revolve around fund-raising and charity? I mean, I'm not in MUN or Debate or sports or anything like that... well, except Yearbook cuz I like photography and dance (which I like :)). I've heard people say that it's good if my extracurricular activities are focused, but is it okay if the focus is on charity? (O and I have leadership positions in some of the community-service-related clubs I'm involved in...) Thank you in advance!</p>
<p>Well, yes … See you should not do extracurricular activities if you dont like them. I mean dont do things just because they will look good in ur portfolio… Which means that since ur good at charity work do that and excell in it and if you cant do sports then dont do it just to show it to the adcom’s/… Now on your question, no one actually knows what the adcom’s actually want so this queestion cant be answered by any of the students… But one last advise do things in which you have interest and you will surely succed wheather it be for EC activites now or job after a few years…
Wish you luck…</p>
<p>@Crystal31: Hi! Thank you so so much for your advice! I really appreciate it. I was somewhat worried because I was afraid that if I only commit myself to charity and community service, the admissions officers might see me as a not-well-rounded person. Thanks so much for your reply again!</p>
<p>Here’s the thing: Harvard gets 35,000 applications per year, most of them from students who are academically capable of going to Harvard, and has to find a way to select 2000 prospective freshmen from among those 35,000 applicants.</p>
<p>They can’t really use academic qualifications to make those distinctions, because everybody’s highly qualified. For better or worse, then, they make their choices based on applicants’ non-academic accomplishments. That, I am sure, is what fueled the current frenzy over extracurricular activities in the first place, and what continues to fuel it.</p>
<p>The problem is, it’s real. The good students who do little but get good grades really don’t get into Harvard and its peers–or they get admitted in minuscule numbers. It doesn’t quite mean that you have to be a nationally ranked tennis player who also makes a good showing at the Siemens competition and wins a National Book Award, as people like to suggest. But it does mean that your prospects aren’t good if your extracurricular life says little about you.</p>
<p>It’s true that you should do things you like, and not just things that you think “look good to colleges” (see [Soup-Kitchen</a> Volunteers Hate College-Application-Padding Brat | The Onion - America’s Finest News Source](<a href=“http://www.theonion.com/articles/soupkitchen-volunteers-hate-collegeapplicationpadd,1422/]Soup-Kitchen”>Soup-Kitchen Volunteers Hate College-Application-Padding Brat)). But your extracurricular activities should say something about you, and should show clear growth or personal development over the course of the years. You may be an athlete, and outdoorsman, a musician, a photographer or even a soup-kitchen volunteer. But whatever you choose to do, if you don’t do it in a way that shows you achieving more or growing in your role year by year, you’re probably not getting into a highly selective college.</p>
<p>And to clarify, my friend Sikorksy’s citation of the onion . com article is clearly humor and satire. I’ve cited the same link in replies before and people read it as an actual news article!</p>
<p>We’re all familiar with this, right?</p>
<p><a href=“http://literallyunbelievable.org/[/url]”>http://literallyunbelievable.org/</a></p>
<p>@Sikorsky & T26E4: Hi! Thanks for making things clearer for me. I really appreciate your help. T26E4, when I first read the article, I thought it was an actual news article too! Anyway, thank you guys so much. I think I’m just going to focus on the clubs I’m involved in right now cause I really like them :)</p>
<p>Hi! I have another question… I am currently taking dance as an arts elective class and tryouts for next year’s varsity dance team is in august. I’m involved in 5 community service charity clubs and I am pretty sure that I can get officer/leadership positions in 4 of them by my senior year. Would it be better to be a leader/officer for 2 or 3 clubs and join varsity dance or is it okay if I just continue the 5 clubs I’m in and not try out for dance? I’m taking dance as an arts elective class until my senior year. Also, do you think 5 clubs is too many? I’m worried colleges are gonna think that I’m shallowly involved… Thank you in advance :)</p>
<p>Neither of those is reading “clearly better” to me, so I think you should probably do whatever you’d like to do, without regard for your application. (That often produces the best applications.)</p>
<p>Hi exultationsy! Thanks so much for your reply. I really appreciate it! 
I was worried I’d look like I’m not very involved in the clubs I’m in if I’m in too many clubs and I was wondering if 5 clubs was too few or too many or just average… But thanks so much for your reply :)</p>
<p>May I make a frank suggestion, btwweml? Do what you feel best meets your own needs, without regard to how it looks to outsiders. The “I need leadership positions” thing is done to death. Actual eye-brow raising applicants I’ve seen clearly are not doing their ECs with an eye out for how impressive they look. They genuinely are pursuing things of great interest to them – and sometimes deeply affecting others around them.</p>
<p>Colleges like H are looking for great contributors and influencers, not people who can check off a list of accomplishments. Good luck to you.</p>
<p>Hi T26E4! I really appreciate your suggestion–thanks! I guess I’m kinda being paranoid about my ECs cuz I know I love being in the clubs I’m in right now but don’t know whether by only joining clubs I like, I’m lowering my chances or not… Again, thanks so much for your reply! :)</p>
<p>btwweml, here’s the really hard (perhaps even ugly) truth: you shouldn’t make your extracurricular choices based on what you’re guessing somebody in Cambridge, Mass., might like.</p>
<p>Remember those numbers up above? Around 2000 out of 35,000 admitted? The sad fact is that even if you spend all your time in high school trying to mold yourself into the applicant you think Harvard is looking for–even if you’ve guessed correctly what Harvard is looking for–the numbers are still against you. The vast majority of applicants to Harvard are perfectly well qualified, and they’re rejected anyway.</p>
<p>So, if you’re academically competitive, it does make sense to make sure you don’t do something to take you out of the running at Harvard. Don’t get expelled from school or plagiarize the term paper in your world history class. Keep doing excellent work in your classes, and keep yourself busy outside class. But it doesn’t make sense to try to arrange the small details of your life so that they’ll “look better to Harvard.” As long as you’re doing first-rate work in school and using your time productively out of class, you may as well please yourself. Because you’ll definitely be spending the four years after high school with yourself, whether you’re in Cambridge, Mass., or not.</p>
<p>Hi Sikorsky! Thanks so much for your reply. I find the last sentence you wrote really touching–I really appreciate the time you took to reply to my post. Thank you!</p>
<p>You’re welcome.</p>
<p>Best of luck to you.</p>