<p>I recently got a part-time job, working between 16-20 hours a week. If I were to continue to do this for a year, how "highly" are such jobs viewed in the realm of college admissions?</p>
<p>It depends. if you are from a low income family and need the money, it may help. </p>
<p>Jobs are viewed like dirt for college admissions, well at least for UCLA and Berkeley. Most schools like to see school related activities e.g. head of an honors society or volunteer activity that helps the disabled, homeless, veterans, etc (basically brownie points).</p>
<p>You are a rising senior now,so the college won’t see more than several months by the time you send in applications. But it shows that you are responsible and accountable if you can hold a job from now until mid-late fall when you send in those apps. It also shows, since your family cannot afford to pay a lot, that you are doing your best to afford to go to college. </p>
<p>The thing that will look more “like dirt” on you applications is that you only had one EC for most of your high school years. Joining a lot of clubs in your junior year screams “I DID THIS TO TRY TO IMPRESS YOU”.</p>
<p>@bomerr: For the record, many colleges consider a job to be an extracurricular activity. For example, see Harvard’s Statement about Extracurricular Activities: <a href=“Guidance Office: Answers From Harvard's Dean, Part 3 - The New York Times”>http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/harvarddean-part3/</a></p>
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<p>That said, if the OP is a rising senior, having a job for 4 months of senior year prior to applying to college might be looked upon as a last minute add-on, something that is there to enhance an application. Colleges are pretty good at seeing through those kind of EC’s, whether it’s a last-minute job, or joining several clubs at the last minute.</p>
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Admission officers at UCLA and UCB SPECIFICALLY look for clues such as holding a job during the week, how many hours, and, when relevant/mentioned in Essay1, what the money’s for (college savings, helping the family, discretionary…) This counts as a serious EC, especially if the job is kept for a long period of time. In fact, many selective colleges on the CommonApp will allow students to provide a recommendation from a work supervisor if they want to (of course, the recommendation should be more precise than merely “a good worker, comes on time, does what is told, never stole anything” 
)</p>
<p>@MYOS1634 & @Gibby I know you guys mean well but your advice is completely off-base; it’s just not based in real world experience.</p>
<p><a href=“Chance me for UCLA - #4 by UCLABounded - UC Transfers - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/16744977</a></p>
<p>This guy got rejected from UCLA. One person I saw get rejected from Haas with 2 Morgan Stanley Internships, another person was the coach of his basketball team. Another person I know personally got into UCLA Poli Sci with a 3.5x GPA and a lot of positions in student government. I could go on with a lot more examples to illustrate my point but I’ll spare you guys the repetition; the point I am trying to make is certain actives (the ones I mentioned above) are FAVORED in holistic admission.</p>
<p>Oh and about stacking your resume with ECs… well UCLA and Cal specifically like a quantity over quality approach, so I would advice precisely filing up the EC with anything you can think of, even if it’s short term. </p>
<p>P.S. Don’t buy into the marketing, there is a big difference between the way “holistic” admission schools portray themselves and the way they actually act. </p>
1 Like
<p>@gibby‌ </p>
<p>“The term “extracurricular activities” covers an enormous amount of ground. We are interested in whatever a student does: in addition to school extracurricular activities and athletics, students can tell us of significant community, employment, or family commitments. There are many who spend a great deal of time helping to run their household, preparing meals and caring for siblings or making money with a part-time job to help the household meet expenses.”</p>
<p>That’s completely true but it’s marketing spin. Low-income students are not favored in college admissions because the schools have to provide aid and private schools that meet-need have to provide a LOT of aid to these students. For that reason they want Triple A superstars. A child from a poor bg with a 2300 SAT + 4.0 UW GPA but ECs of working a job and cleaning around the house has 0% chance of getting into Havard. They’d need something else like A) being abused B) massive community service involvement, helping people in their area, etc. So yes while those things can be considered ECs, schools don’t look favorably on them. </p>
<p>@bomerr: I can’t speak for you, but my children (with jobs on their EC list) were accepted to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, Dartmouth, Georgetown, Boston College, Williams, Middlebury, Vanderbilt, Pomona, UChicago, Northwestern and Binghamton. So, I’m not just buying into marketing, I know it’s true from experience!</p>
<p>@gibby was that her only EC? and what is your income level?</p>
<p>Jobs were not my children’s only EC, but they were a major component of their EC list. And FWIW, we are a white, middle class family making about $140k. Both my kids attended public school and are on financial aid; my daughter is at Harvard, my son at Yale, for less than the cost of sending them to our state school. They hit the Powerball of college admissions, but had many fabulous schools to choose from – all of which offered financial aid (some a lot more than others) – and every school considered a job to be on par with more traditional school related EC’s.
^^ You’re making stuff up and have no idea what you are talking about. More than 60% of students at Harvard are on financial aid and more than 50% of students at Yale are on financial aid – thousands of them are from both low income and middle families.</p>
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^^ And neither kid had any community service or volunteer experience on their EC list – zero, zilch, none! So, you’re way off base there as well.</p>
<p>“That said, if the OP is a rising senior, having a job for 4 months of senior year prior to applying to college might be looked upon as a last minute add-on, something that is there to enhance an application.”</p>
<p>I think there is a big difference between getting your first job after your junior year of high school and joining the marching band as a senior. Even when I was a kid 40 years ago, it wasn’t unusual that a kid would get their first job after junior year. </p>
<p>From Bonerr’s posting history, s/he sounds like a bitter, disappointed applicant him/herself. </p>
<p>
Tell that to Dawn Loggins (<a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/07/us/from-janitor-to-harvard/”>From scrubbing floors to Ivy League: Homeless student to go to dream college - CNN), David Boone (<a href=“Cleveland student David Boone worked hard to go from homeless to Harvard - cleveland.com”>Cleveland student David Boone worked hard to go from homeless to Harvard - cleveland.com) and a bunch of other kids who get into Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT etc every because they were poor with high SAT’s and GPA’s.</p>
<p>bomerr: You’re a high school student and your examples come from a few friends and CC threads. Let us say my examples don’t come from a few friends and CC threads and let us leave it at that. Same thing for Gibby and a few adults here. So, no, we don’t “mean well but”, we know what we’re talking about.</p>
<p>BTW, internships aren’t jobs. Jobs, in that sense (for an EC), mean 10+ hours a week in school time, 30+hours a week during breaks/vacation, in low-paid positions such as fast food worker, supermarket cashier, etc. Essentially, they’re a slog. Not something people WANT to do, but something they HAVE TO do for whatever reason, and thus show they can put duty above personal wishes. What is valued is not the action but the ability to put interest aside, to show responsibility and consistency, plus developing work ethics. It also explains why the student didn’t have time to do other EC’s that would take place at the same time as the job. It’s also a cue to SES and thus important for diversity (although many middle class and upper middle class work for a variety of reasons, which is why the mention of a job will be matched with recommendation and essays, and, for the UCs, with Essay1.)</p>
<p>@MYOS1634
I’m a CC transfer so my exp comes from both HS and CC trasnfers. </p>
<p>@giddy4info‌
notice how i said “A) being abused” and that CNN news article says “She was homeless at the start of the school year, abandoned by her drug-abusing parents.” and the guy was also homeless. Talking about “caring for siblings or making money with a part-time job to help the household meet expenses.” isn’t going to cut it. </p>
<p>^^ That still doesn’t negate the fact that you’re dead wrong about:
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You should STOP giving such advice on CC until you have read a few more books. Some of my favorites, all of which I have read, include:</p>
<ol>
<li>“A is for Admission” by Michele Hernandez
<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Admission-Insiders-Getting-League-Colleges/dp/0446540676/ref=la_B001IGFHZS_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1401154536&sr=1-1”>http://www.amazon.com/Admission-Insiders-Getting-League-Colleges/dp/0446540676/ref=la_B001IGFHZS_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1401154536&sr=1-1</a></li>
<li>“Acing the College Application” by Michele Hernandez
<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Acing-College-Application-Maximize-Admission/dp/0345498925”>http://www.amazon.com/Acing-College-Application-Maximize-Admission/dp/0345498925</a></li>
<li>“What you don’t know can Keep you out of College” by Don Dunbar
<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/What-Dont-Know-Keep-College/dp/1592403026”>http://www.amazon.com/What-Dont-Know-Keep-College/dp/1592403026</a></li>
<li>“The Gatekeepers” by Jaques Steinberg
<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/The-Gatekeepers-Admissions-Process-Premier/dp/0142003085”>http://www.amazon.com/The-Gatekeepers-Admissions-Process-Premier/dp/0142003085</a></li>
<li>“The Price Of Admission” by Daniel Golden
<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400097975/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_3?pf_rd_p=1535523722&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0142003085&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1GMPKF9ASV3H9A4P8SN5”>http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400097975/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_3?pf_rd_p=1535523722&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0142003085&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1GMPKF9ASV3H9A4P8SN5</a></li>
</ol>
<p>After you’ve read those books, you might change your mind about what happens behind the closed doors of Admissions Committee’s and give more accurate advice.</p>
<p>^
- I’ve seen multiple people with jobs as heavy EC get rejected over people with school related ECs. On the EC totem-pole. Jobs are the bottom of the list, below school clubs, sports, tutoring, contests, etc, you name it. “Making money with a part-time job to help the household meet expenses.” isn’t going to get anyone in a top university without the part about coming from a terribly (e.g. drugs, homeless, raped, etc) disadvantaged background like I originally said your web articles show. In short it’s only good to fill up the EC sheet with a variety of different ECs. </p>
<p>2) You are less favored than a family that can afford full-pay. Likewise a family with 0 EPC is even less favored than you. I said less favored, I didn’t say auto-rejected. </p>
<p>P.S. You shouldn’t be reading so many books because they give a far too generalized viewpoint. I’ve seen where multiple peers, with grades, grade trends, essays, EC, etc.got into. On the flip-side and possibly even more important I saw what schools people were rejected from. When you see two people with near identical stats, one accept, one reject, you will develop a fined tuned ability and analyzing detail. In short a job wasn’t a common thread in their admissions decision. </p>
<p>As no student ever finds out why they were rejected, you cannot make assumptions about why a student was denied. But, many students do find out why they were accepted because their Regional Admissions writes them a personal letter letting them know what “rang true” with their application. And often times guidance counselors, teachers and Admissions Directors who travel the country go to various high schools and present to students and parents samples of “applications that worked.” Much of my knowledge comes from attending those sessions, as well. </p>
<p>The more seasoned adults on CC – myself and @MYOS1634 – disagree with you. I think our collective experience outweighs yours, but we can agree to disagree.</p>
<p>If you want a good article to read I would highly recommend checking this out:</p>
<p><a href=“Lifting the Veil on the Holistic Process at the University of California, Berkeley - The New York Times”>Lifting the Veil on the Holistic Process at the University of California, Berkeley - The New York Times;
<p>btw I’m an adult too, if you are curious about my stats I got into USC. If I was to redo my application with the information I know now, I think I would get into at least Cornell or Columbia (I didn’t apply to either tho)</p>