How do I look like in my activities/clubs? Imagine me.

Applying to College
1

I havent done all these but I was wondering how colleges will look at me if I did achieve all this. (I’m expecting ppl to critisize me saying that I shouldnt write down the stuff that I wont be able to do)

Rocket Building Activity- member (9)
Class President (9, 10)
Model United Nations (9, 10) - Delegate of India
Math Help Club Co-founder (10)
Basketball club - member (9, 10)
Golf as hobby during weekends (9, 10)

Internship for a month at a bank (9)
Math tutor for one month (got paid) to a 4th grader (9)
AMC12 105 (10)
AIME qualifier (10)

TRANSFER TO A NEW SCHOOL (during soph)

Chess Club President (9, 10, 11, 12)
Science Club President (10, 11, 12)
Mu Alpha Theta Math Club President (10, 11, 12)
NHS Officer (11, 12)
Student Government (11, 12)
Golf team captain (10, 11, 12)
Math Olympaid workout Club Founder/president (11, 12)
and a bit more but only as a member.

USAMO qualifier (11)
Internship at newspaper place (11)
Independant research on maths (11)

How do I look like and what do u think my passion is?
(and should this be enough for MIT)?

I’m a sophomore now and when I transfer, I plan on doing this. Sorry again for making predictions when they are very hard to achieve. But just think I did do all them :D.

2

<p>You look like a serial joiner who does things to pad their resume.</p>

<p>Most highly select colleges prefer applicants who pursue their own passions and have lots of depth in a couple of ECs. They don't want serial joiners. They also don't want people who have to ask others what their passions are.</p>

<p>While there are some very rare people who are extremely well rounded and can get great grades while doing in depth a variety of activities that they enjoy, from the way that you posted, you don't sound like that type of person. You sound like someone who does things only to try to look good to colleges, and that's a big turnoff.</p>

3

<p>but the weakness is, for most clubs, only 1 hour to max 2 were spent each week.</p>

4

<p>But the time that you spent was your choice.</p>

<p>From what I can tell, most h.s. clubs meet at most 1 to 2 hours a week. However, people doing true leadership in such clubs do far more with the clubs than what goes on at the club's meetings. In fact, with most clubs -- including professional organizations and things like city councils-- most of the work goes on outside of meetings. </p>

<p>For instance, as class president, you could be creating, organizing and assisting with fund raising projects or activities designed to help solve school problems or to increase school spirit. Such activities might be approved at your weekly SGA meeting, but the actual work (from getting administrators' approval to publicizing the event to doing the hands-on work of the activity) would be done during many hours outside of the formal meetings.</p>

<p>Doing one such major project would take so much time that you would probably not be able to do all of the other activities that you currently are doing. Creating and organizing a major activity for your class, though, would be more impressive to colleges than your simply having a lot of titles that represented nothing more than your showing up at some meetings.</p>

<p>I have seen students with empty titles. In fact, I declined to write a recommendation for a student who held a presidency position, but whose only actions were to show up at meetings and announce why the organization had been "too busy" to accomplish anything. That's not leadership. That's preventing leadership.</p>

<p>What have you accomplished as class president? What have you done to improve things for your classmates or school? If I were interviewing you for a college, that's the kind of question that I'd ask. If I were looking at your college app, that's the kind of thing that I'd expect your essays and recommendations to answer.</p>

5

<p>argh.. can u suggest how i can change it around? ... I havent thought of that. thnx</p>

6

<p>yes. I presume my leadership positions will be very misleading and will be empty exactly as you've mentioned. But their are my two passions; math and golf. I will certainly spend at least 3 hours per day on math (for usamo) and practice for golf. Your advices are truely helpful.</p>

7

<p>Check out what I just added in the last graphs of my last message.</p>

<p>The point is that instead of getting a list of titles, you need to be thinking of some activities and programs that you could create -- to help your school, your community or the students in the organizations that you hold leadership positions in.</p>

<p>Just having a title isn't enough. Just doing leadership to pad your resume isn't enough. </p>

<p>Colleges know that students who only do things for resume padding aren't likely to do ECs on college campuses because grad schools aren't as interested in ECs as are undergraduate institutions. </p>

<p>Yet, the top universities want to maintain a variety of strong ECs, so they definitely want to accept students with genuine interest in ECs and the ability to lead such ECs without faculty advisors. At top universities ECs are completely student run, usually by unpaid volunteers, and often are run at a professional level.</p>

<p>As an alum interviewer for Harvard, I once interviewed a h.s. senior who was doing very impressive leadership in a position that sounded very humble. She was in charge of the uniforms for her school band. </p>

<p>She not only was personally responsible for about 100 uniforms, which was a lot of hard work requiring high level organizational skills, she also used her position on the band's executive council as a way of making sure that freshmen felt welcome in the band. She started some programs that specifically were designed to encourage the freshmen and to help them perform at their best. She spotted a need for such a program, and she assertively and creatively started a program.</p>

<p>While she wasn't president of any organization, she still displayed a lot of leadership in a role that students who were simply resume polishers would have scorned. In fact, she displayed more leadership than did most presidents of student organizations whom I have talked to.</p>

<p>While she didn't get into Harvard (I gave her a strong recommendation, but, as always, the competition for H is horrendous), she did get into a top 5 university.</p>

8

<p>I don't know enough about golf to comment on how you can run with your passion for that.</p>

<p>With math, however, it would be good if you did more than simply study math for yourself or simply win math awards. There are many, many students applying to top colleges who have won national math awards. There is such an overabundance of such students that many get rejected by top colleges particularly if that's basically been their main EC.</p>

<p>You can pursue your passion while also making yourself a more attractive prospect by, for instance, starting some kind of math tutoring program at your school or at a community center such as a local Boys and Girls Club. Another option might be to go to a local elementary school (preferably one where lots of students are academically struggling) and institute a monthly or weekly math games night. Something else you could consider doing would be starting and running a chess club in a low income community center or school. You could involve your math, chess or NHS in doing these things, too. </p>

<p>The idea isn't for you to do everything by yourself, but to also share the workload. Being able to inspire others, delegate, and share responsibilities are important aspects of leadership. Looking for ways of using your talents and interests to make your community better also is important.</p>

9

<p>Again, your comments and advices are amazingly helpful. I just read the "stat roster" thread for Harvard and finally realised that with the current mindset, I'll only become another carbon-copy of a MIT-reject. </p>

<p>God, this is hard. I'm a very selfish person and I'm awestruck by those who are altruistic and passionate during their high school year. I guess when people post their stats, the real picture is hidden behind their essays and recs. However, surely, top schools also want to admit some all-rounded nothing too special type of person and I hope I can compete in that. It is amazing how such young kids can be so self-motivating and selfless.</p>

<p>For maths, although I truly like doing it, I once had a major conflict whether I should continue it as my true passion and interest or just ditch it and find something else for the sake of university. I knew that IMO winners and other nationwide math winners were going to apply and thus my mathematical passion wouldn't stand out. I'll have to present my passion in a different form (other than winning math awards) like your suggestion.</p>

<p>However, this can be a rather big risk. Schools other than HYPMS (and of course some other top schools) prefer carbon-copy stereotypical applicants like me (if I ever do achieve those EC's and stellar grades that is) and if I focuse on the aspects that HYPMS want to see, some sacrifices of the listed EC's and perhaps academic achievement will presumably be inevitable. It would be disastrous if I get rejected by the top ones and not even compete for the rest. I will certainly consider your advice (and I greatly appreciate it) but probably stick to the carbon copy idea. Please excuse my confusing language and grammatical/spelling errors; English isnt my first language. I may sound contradicting at time...</p>

10

<p>i think if you do those, you will be more than set to be admitted to harvard. USAMO Qualfier? If you manage that then life will be good =)</p>

11

<p>meetings are only one or two hours a week, but I competetive one will take more work than that, atleast three.</p>

12

<p>shostakovich: USAMO doesnt have much effect as we all expect. If you find people who have USAMO in their app. (which is extremely rare; well less than 100 per year) and look at which colleges they were admitted to, to our surprise they are often not MIT or Penn (no specific reasons for using these collegenames).</p>