how important are clubs??

<p>m a junior in high school right now and i was just wondering how important clubs are in determining college admission.. i have pretty good grades GPA/SAT wise and am very active (do sports year round, volunteer work, church work etc.) but one thing that i feel is setting me back is my involvement in clubs which is none. </p>

<p>do colleges place an emphasis on involvement with clubs?</p>

<p>Don't stress. As long as you are involved in other extracurriculars like sports and community service (which you are), then you're fine.</p>

<p>I had zero clubs, and I did fine.</p>

<p>Don't join a club just to be in a club. If you've been in a club since freshman year or helped start one, then maybe put it on your apps. Colleges know when people pad their resume my joining clubs junior year.</p>

<p>I was in a lot of clubs, but in the end I didn't even write them on the majority of my college apps... they just didn't demonstrate a huge time commitment and I had other activities that were more important to me/time-consuming. Do what you're interested in.</p>

<p>My advice is to do some clubs. you know the standard NHS, Key Club thing, fairly low commitment but you can still write it up to show that you are involved at school. Colleges mostly want to know how much time you're dedicating to extracurricular activities, regardless of where such activities take place as long as they are things you're passionate about.</p>

<p>Most colleges don't factor ECs into admission. They may factor ECs (including church, volunteer work, etc.) into merit aid, however. The exception is sports: If you're great at a sport the college needs, that can get you into many colleges.</p>

<p>No reason to join clubs just to fill up an app. You'd be wasting your time.</p>

<p>The colleges that do care about ECs want to know what you accomplished in them. Memberships don't count. </p>

<p>And NHS only counts for the few colleges --mainly 2nd and 3rd tier -- that give small scholarships to members. </p>

<p>There are lots of threads on this topic that you can find in CCs archives.</p>

<p>^^</p>

<p>How much of an emphasis do you think a school like RPI puts on ECs?</p>