<p>Stanford is my dream school and I am trying to do everything I can to make myself standout from the thousands of other applicants. My grades are good, I do clubs and sports, and academic camps over the summer. I feel like everyone does that though. I recently started looking into foreign exchange programs for my senior year in Germany. I am not considering it just because I want to put it on my application, I am doing it for me. My question is whether or not this will help my application, or possibly hurt my chances of being accepted into Stanford. I ask this because I won't have many leadership roles, like officers of clubs, and I won't have those AP classes for my senior year (although before I would leave I was planning to take 3 courses with the community college).</p>
<p>I would say it definitely helps! Though I was involved in a couple of ECs, had good grades and decent test scores, I wasn’t a leader of anything, really, and the one thing that I think helped my application stand out was my year abroad. Of course, simply saying you went and came back won’t be enough. After coming back I became involved with the program I had studied with, and I continued studying the language independently. I don’t think studying abroad on its own helped me get in, but rather it helped demonstrate the genuine interest I had in it. </p>
<p>So assuming you’re doing this for yourself, it should definitely help you. It will also probably give you some interesting topics to write about in your essays.</p>
<p>The only thing about showing interest and including it in my essays is that I want to get my applications done before I go abroad that way the only thing I have to worry about is learning the language and culture.</p>
<p>Oh! and one thing that I can’t believe I forgot is the fact that I have been volunteering at the hospital since freshman year and I started a volunteering club in my school. So I guess that counts as one leadership position.</p>