<p>The range of extracurriculars I've shown on my common application is extremely small compared to the amount of extracurriculars I've seen a lot of American students putting in. Will this seriously affect my chances? Have any of you faced this problem?</p>
<p>Depth > Range</p>
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<p>You will be compared to other applicants from your country. Adcoms know that foreign students don’t get the sort of opportunities U.S. students do wrt ECs.</p>
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<p>^ Also very true.</p>
<p>I think the more specialized you are in your extracurriculars,the stabler you are,and the more you are in control of them,as opposed to being scattered all over.</p>
<p>I wonder what depth here means. For example, I’ve been interested in debating since class 5; followed it up for 7 years till 12th - point is, I have no major awards or recognition. Does this count as depth??? Or does depth mean liking an activity and gaining Nobel Prizes in it???</p>
<p>^ That’s not really depth, that’s more breadth. Depth is when you have achievements in a certain field, or somesuch. Pursuing an activity over 7 years without major achievements shows persistence, which is good, but not expertise.</p>
<p>Saxena - the list you were talking about is almost the same…</p>
<p>@blue_box - Fair point, but there seem to be many other factors in play. For example, major award-winning students generally hail from good schools which encourage students to purse activities and regularly enter them in prestigious competitions and so on. I don’t mean to give excuses, but my school pretty much ignored extra-curricular activities (all except football). Seriously, I’ve never ever heard of a major debating competition in my life, or for that matter, I didn’t know what Olympiads were until 11th class. How the heck was I supposed to earn recognition?? </p>
<p>Oh, also, when I changed schools after 10th, my second school was the IIT- intensive kind - timings 8 to 6. Certainly no space for any sort of activity. Now what??</p>
<p>Your application should be considered in context. They’ll judge you based on what was available to you. However when compared to someone who has taken part in, and won several major competitions, you would be at a disadvantage because that person has proven himself (while you didn’t have the opportunity to).</p>
<p>rsaxena-I kind of get where you’re coming from-when I was in 10th grade in India we were basically really focused on our boards and not so much on ECs…but like most people said, AdComs are gonna care that you made the best of the facilities available to you in whatever school and participated in atleast one significant activity apart from academics. As long as you can show you were involved in the school community, you shouldn’t worry too much about not winning national awards and such.</p>
<p>@blue_box - I see - thank you. </p>
<p>arunemo - Lol funny thing is, my school did not focus much on boards as well. But anyway, thanks for that piece of rather encouraging info - but again, as blue_box said, when one enters the realm of the Ivy League and others, it becomes that much more harder for me.</p>
<p>rsaxena-did you mean not focus much on ECs? 
No problem, I had the same issue and was pretty stressed before I talked to my counselor and referee. They told me not to worry and that the issue would be addressed in the counselor’s report. I wrote to a lady I’d met at a college fair who was a Yale alumni and she told me what I told you. HYPSM aren’t new to situations like yours, so they won’t judge you unfairly.</p>
<p>I face the same problem as rsaxena 
though as for it ‘being addressed in a counselor’s report’ since I go to a Christian missionary convent where the nuns freak out about me ‘abandoning my country’ to study in the USA, I’ve had to prepare all the counselor’s recos myself… and I hadn’t thought to include points about the lack of ECs at my school.</p>
<p>@arunemo - Bit relieving to hear that, for sure. :)</p>
<p>@Senjuti - Have you already submitted all your applications??</p>
<p>Senjuti-Do you mean you wrote the counselor rec yourself? It’s a little unclear.</p>
<p>@rsaxena: I’ve just started sending them out…
@arunemo: Yes, I had to since the principal made it clear that I was expected to type out my own recos and she’d be willing to sign it for me, but nothing else.</p>
<p>Senjuti-Sorry but is that even allowed? Isn’t the whole point of teacher recs that colleges get an impression of how you work in a class from another reliable person? It’s supposed to be the one part of your application that you have no control over. Surely writing it yourself defeats the purpose…?
I’m sorry I don’t mean to sound rude or negative here, I’m just genuinely curious over whether that’s ok with AdComs. I understand your teachers refuse to write it for you, have you tried talking to them again? (Are they really that bent on not writing you a reference? I used to go to a Christian school in Delhi and every sister I met was incredibly sweet. Surely they can’t stop you from doing what you desire?) If they still won’t budge, then have you written to admissions officers at the schools you’re applying to to check if it’s ok?It’s just I’m so used to everyone talking about teacher refs and how to ask for good one’s where you’ve done the best in class and stuff that it came as a bit of a shock when you said you’re writing them yourself. I guess in your situation you have no choice but I do hope you’ve checked with the Admission Officers and asked for their opinion.</p>
<p>The teachers were the ones who kind of bullied me into doing it myself… they said they’d ‘cover’ for me if the colleges asked whether they’d written them for me but, they refused to write it for me, alleging lack of time.</p>
<p>As for the principal… she didn’t even know what SATs were a month before and first refused to give permission for the teachers to even sign the Teacher Evaluations…</p>
<p>Oh wow that’s a bit dishonest no? 
I dunno, if that’s the only way you can apply to the States then go for it…</p>
<p>Yes, I do know it’s very dishonest, but what could I?</p>