Help! Freaking out over EC's!

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
1

<p>I'm going to condense the situation I'm in and start by saying that I'm a really anxious person with OCD - so it's natural for me to be obsessive and always find things to worry about. </p>

<p>So it's my dream to attend UChicago, my academics are excellent, valedictorian, high ACT and such. But my EC's are distressing me. </p>

<p>Freshman Year: </p>

<p>Science Club,
Italian Cultural Club
Mock Election (it was a one week thing) </p>

<p>Sophomore:</p>

<p>Italian Cultural Club
Took up violin as a hobby, self taught
(Quit Science Club due to lack of time, family problems...) </p>

<p>Junior Year: </p>

<p>Italian Cultural Club
Science Club (realized my mistake of quitting)
Volunteering at Hospital
Violin </p>

<p>Summer of Junior Year </p>

<p>Prestigious Research Internship at UChicago itself (got a letter from my mentor) 40 hrs/wk, 8 weeks,
Physician Shadowing </p>

<p>Senior Year</p>

<p>Italian Cultural Club (No positions offered by the way, all committee work)
Science Club (Historian)
Volunteering at Hospital
Violin </p>

<p>And then I joined </p>

<p>Mathletes (because I fell in love with math after taking Calculus :D and you get benefits in my Calc class lol)
NHS (Yet again, I was stupid for not joining junior year)
Principal's Advisory Cabinet as Representative of Environmental Club ( It's invitation only, so I couldn't have joined it before they nominated me). </p>

<p>And that's pretty much it - What's going on in my head is perpetual warfare. I've been reading that joining things senior year is gonna kill your application and i'm so worried about this! I didn't know this before, and the problem is I submitted my application like two weeks ago! So I can't go back and delete all the ECs that i joined senior year! </p>

<p>I worked so hard on my entire application, and now my EC's look so bad and all over the place! Please explain to me how this looks to you!?</p>

<p>And just to add: I'm really dedicated to the Italian Club and Science Club and I talked extensively about that in my interview, and I also stated why I joined Mathletes. I'm just scared that quitting Science Club sophomore year would look bad.</p>

2

<p>I think having three activities is fine, as long as you’re absolutely devoted to all of them (spend more than 10 hours+ per week on each). I basically had three items in my EC basket when I applied (varsity athlete, violin, and fundraising for a local science research institute). I spent 12 hours a week on varsity athletics (I was the captain of the team) and 14 hours practicing violin (and won a lot of awards for both). I saw a lot of students’ list of ECs, and many of them are outright lying. I saw them submitting laundry lists of activities. If you actually do the math, they’re basically claiming that they spend more than 100 hours a week on extracurricular activities. That’s just downright dishonest; the math just doesn’t add up. Don’t students have academic work to take care of?</p>

3

<p>Would joining three activities senior year kill me? I’m so nervous about this! And in my interview, I said exactly what you said, I told the counselor that “I’m not the type of person that has a laundry list of EC’s, I like to devote myself to a few” and then I talked mostly about Science and Italian Club. </p>

<p>:(</p>

4

<p>You’ll be just fine. There’s nothing you can do now, after all. Just be confident in yourself. If you don’t get in UofC, it won’t be because of your extracurricular activities, and you will still end up at a great school.</p>

5

<p>You really think there’s no reason to worry? So they aren’t all that weak, right? These next seven weeks are gonna kill me, I swear. </p>

<p>By the way, I know UChicago focuses on essays - and I’ve spent months on them, refined them, and perfected them. I also made them extremely unique, so I’m very confident on that end. </p>

<p>So EC’s aren’t going to destroy my application and cause me to not get accepted?</p>

6

<p>Nope. Unlike medical schools admissions, there are no right answers for college admissions when it comes to ECs.</p>

7

<p>Please take this with a kind tone, not a sarcastic one … from my perspective, the only thing that is going to really harm you in the admission process, is your neurotic approach. Deep breath, calm down - do your best on the things you can control and have a plan B.</p>

8

<p>Thanks so much Divine Comedy, you’ve reassured me, to an extent :slight_smile: It’s just that these CC posts freak me out about joining stuff senior year, saying it’ll look “mysterious” and it will be “looked down upon.” </p>

<p>And MaterMia: I am not offended by that at all. The sad part is I know I’m neurotic but I can’t stop my obsessive worrying. I’ll try though :)… So what do you think of my situation?</p>

9

<p>Here’s a question: How did you get on the Principal’s Advisory Cabinet as the representative of the Environmental Club when you don’t even include the Environmental Club on your list of activities? I think you are probably selling yourself a little short. Anyway, it’s hardly a problem to “join” an activity in your senior year when, like the PAC, it’s something that builds on stuff you have done in the past and recognizes the value you add to things. </p>

<p>It looks to me like you have been really consistent in your interests, but added things from time to time as you became interested in them (violin, mathletes). There’s nothing wrong with that at all. It’s a nice profile.</p>

<p>Extracurricular Activities isn’t some kind of video game where you are trying to accumulate as many weapons, lives, and powers as you can to get to the next level. (Well, it probably is like that for some people, but not for most, and I certainly don’t think colleges see it that way.) </p>

<p>From a college admissions standpoint, ECs do three things.</p>

<p>First, for some people, they really are the focus of those people’s lives, much more than anything they do in the classroom. You can’t really tell what they are capable of without looking at their ECs, because that’s where the bulk of their energy goes. That’s not everyone, though. And colleges may want some people like that in their classes – it helps make the college community more vibrant for everyone, including the faculty and administration – but they sure don’t want entire classes full of those people.</p>

<p>Second, for everyone, ECs help identify what they are really interested in, how they spend their time. It’s yet another clue about who they really are – along with all the other stuff colleges see. Just reading what you wrote above about your ECs, I learned a fair amount about your interests. Also, some people do a lot of individual things, while others like working in groups, etc. It’s part of who they are. Your high school course list doesn’t show that at all, but your major ECs do.</p>

<p>Third, many colleges do care about whether they are graduating people who are going to have a positive impact on their communities, and looking at students’ involvement in their communities at home and at school is a pretty good way of gauging whether someone is the kind of person who goes out and gets involved or who just sticks to his knitting.</p>

<p>You really don’t have to fear any of this. Most colleges admit all sorts of people, as long as they are basically capable of doing the work and getting engaged in something – academics, or ECs, or some combination of them.</p>

10

<p>I totally meant Representative of the Science Club - I posted environmental because at that moment my friend was talking to me about environmental! lol So I got the position for the PAC because I was a dedicated member of the science club, and I also got historian like I mentioned earlier. </p>

<p>I feel so bad because I quite sophomore year, because I really do expend most of my energy in the Science Club. I hope colleges can see that I realized my mistake and corrected it by rejoining junior year. </p>

<p>Thanks for your help, I do feel a bit better! Sometimes my brain goes out of its “logic mode” and starts going crazy, and here it is. And for some reason, your username sounds familiar, did you answer another one of my posts like a year ago? I posted on foreign language requirement and that was another example of when my brain was out of “logic mode.” lol :slight_smile: </p>

<p>So you really think that my EC’s aren’t too all over the place, and they won’t be the cause of my rejection?</p>

11

<p>You are a fine candidate, with fine EC’s … breathe … breathe …</p>