<p>That there is an extremely LARGE amount of people who only do things for college applications?</p>
<p>I remember I went to a five hour, one time government-type seminar, and I found that 90% of the other kids attending were only there becuase "it looks good on a college application".</p>
<p>Now, I dont know exactly how they will emphasize the fact that they are SO involved with this five-hour conference, but..</p>
<p>Anyways, are people like this at your school as well? And do you think admissions officers can see through certain people?</p>
<p>I'd be pretty surprised if admissions officers couldn't. I mean, they look at so many applications that it would be hard for them not to learn how to notice. My godmother has actually worked as an admissions person for a Virginia school, and she says that it is usually quite clear who is 'padding' or just doing things for the app and who is not.</p>
<p>We have Link Crew (upperclassmen helping freshmen adjust) at my school, and on the orientation day one of the freshmen in my group asked why we (their Link Leaders) were involved with LC... and one of the LLs actually said, "I'm mostly doing it because it looks good on college applications." I was like, :eek: Even if that's true, don't tell the freshmen that! It's like, "Oh, yeah, don't really care about you punks. I just want to get into college." :rolleyes: :mad: That ticks me off.</p>
<p>I really don't see what's wrong with doing these for college applications. </p>
<p>Why do most people to go college? To get a good job. Do you think most people want to spend the next 4 years busting their ass RIGHT AFTER they finally earned their diploma? I don't, so they must be padding their resume, right? </p>
<p>It's really not as big of a deal as you all make it. They still did their job, didn't they Anniushka?</p>
<p>Yes, they "did their job." It's a lot more complicated and nuanced than that, though; ethics comes into play. You can do something for the right reason, or you can do something for the wrong reason--whether or not that "something" is itself a good thing. They did a good thing, for the wrong reason--i.e., not to help the freshmen, but to serve their own selfish purposes. </p>
<p>If you feel that behaving in a self-serving way is perfectly fine, then whatever. You're almost certainly part of the majority here on CC. I don't think it's fine, though.</p>
<p>No. From what I've seen, most people who do things for their college app don't do their job well.
For example, there are a few in our school who made it to the student council just to make their application stand out a bit more. The student council is a job of big responsibilities, so there are millions of things we need to do. But they don't even try to contribute anything to school or the council, whereas everyone who joined because they wanted to make school better spend their free time trying to fill in the gaps of those "useless idiots".</p>
<p>You completely ignored my argument Anniushka.</p>
<p>"Why do most people to go college? To get a good job. Do you think most people want to spend the next 4 years busting their ass RIGHT AFTER they finally earned their diploma? I don't, so they must be padding their resume, right?"</p>
<p>The girl that was our Freshman class president a few years ago only ran because it was her dream to go to Yale, and she thought that being class president would look good on her application.</p>
<p>Armando, I answered the question that you posed to me, that's all. </p>
<p>The only part of your above-quoted argument that I "get" is the "Why do most people go to college? To get a good job." The rest is gibberish to me. (Sorry.) Now, I'm sure lots of people do go to college just to get a good job. Just because that's what most people do doesn't make it sit right with me. I am going to college to learn as much interesting stuff as I can. The whole college-career ambition thing seems odd and slightly unhuman to me, though intellectually I am well aware that that is the mindset of many of my peers. </p>
<p>This was actually what my valedictorian speech was about: focusing on the journey, rather than the destination. So many people go through their lives doing things solely in order to reach the next step. They take classes (or do ECs) to graduate from high school, or to get into college. They go to college to get their dream job. They work overtime to get that promotion and pay raise. Then keep working to retire. And when they retire, they say, "Ah, finally I can do all those things that I've always wanted to do!"--because they never had time before to anything they truly enjoyed. They were always striving to get to that next step. They only thought about the destination; the journey was just something they had to "get through" to arrive at that destination. However, I believe that in order to live a meaningful life, you have to switch that around: do what you really enjoy, do interesting things, follow your passions, and you will find yourself in a good place. I have faith that by doing what I love along the way, I will find my calling--and lead a much more interesting life than my "driven" counterparts. </p>
<p>My beliefs are probably pretty foreign to most CCers. That's okay. I didn't get to be where I am by thinking and behaving like my peers.</p>
<p>I'm more talking about the people who, say, have absolutely no interest in Club X, but join it becuase it supposedly looks good on a college application. </p>
<p>If someone joins a club for psychology, because they love it, and they love how it looks good on an app, I think thats more of hitting two birds with one stone. Not a bad thing at all. </p>
<p>Its just, at my gov thing, no one there had a genuine interest for it. It was dissapointing and it felt fake.</p>
<p>That doesn't happen at my school, because nobody thinks like that. While we are a fairly competitive public high school (we send about 7 kids to Ivy League schools and many more to MIT/Stanford/very competitive LACs every year), I can only think of one or two students who are so uptight about college applications. Nobody stresses about summer programs, their SAT scores, or whether or not their ECs demonstrate "true passion" (that's one of the reasons I completely panicked when I found CC. Ha, ha). But, it's also very refreshing. People are in clubs because they're interested in them.</p>
<p>I can think of one MAJOR exception- a girl this year who got into Harvard. She hired a consultant who told her what to be interested in, what clubs to join, what contests to enter, etc. She told her friends (quite seriously) that if she didn't get in to Harvard, she would kill herself. She's incredibly arrogant, had no real friends because she constantly was condescending towards them, and bragged incessantly about getting into Harvard.</p>
<p>Next year, as a senior, I'm planning on doing Model UN. I've never been on it before. I won't have a leadership position, and I'm not going into government/foreign relations, so I'm obviously not trying to beef up my application. The truth is, I simply haven't had the time to participate in past years (not that I do now- I realized that this is my last chance, though, and I'm willing to add some sleepless hours here and there). Model UN seems like a really interesting experience, and I want to participate for THAT reason- the experience.</p>