<p>I would like to know how many extracurricular activities would be sufficient for Yale I was thinking about doing Tennis, Science National Honor Society, Psychology Club, Research Club, Debate, and Society for Future Authors maybe National Jr Honor Society. Would this be enough?
thanks</p>
<p>^^ You need to change the way you are thinking about EC’s. All selective colleges are looking for how passionate you are about your activities – whatever they may be. It’s NOT the number of extracurriculars, it’s your participation in each activity that counts – the number of years you spent doing each EC, the hours per week you spent on each activity, and any leadership positions you held. It’s better to have fewer activities (4 or 5) with years of participation rather than having a laundry list of activities that you weren’t very active in. See: [Advice</a> on Putting Together Your Application | Yale College Admissions](<a href=“Advice on Putting Together Your Application | Yale College Undergraduate Admissions”>Advice on Putting Together Your Application | Yale College Undergraduate Admissions)</p>
<p>should i try all of them out to see which ones i like and then participate in the ones that I like the most or is that a waste of time and I should just chose the ones I think sound the most interesting in my list?</p>
<p>The only way you’ll know is to try them all and see which ones you like the best.</p>
<p>Thank you gibby</p>
<p>I disagree. I think there is a clear, proven formula for getting into Yale. It’s called Tscebychev’s theorem. Essentially, you take your SAT score and divide by the number of leadership positions you have, and then divide that by the relative ratio of people of your race in America. Then, you multiply that by the gravitational constant. You take the resulting value, and that is the m value of the Poisson distribution for the likelihood of admission. Crunch the numbers with a calculator, and that should give you the percent chance you achieve admission. Best of luck!</p>
<p>^ LOLing right now.</p>
<p>This thread is so depressing.</p>
<p>I always say asking how many extracurriculars one should have is as useful as asking how many friends one should have.</p>
<p>sketrag: the fact you think there is a formula or a cookie cutter recipe to be a “viable Yale applicant” says that you’ve not really investigated what Yale looks for. Plz look at what YALE says on their own websites.</p>
<p>Viable applicants I’ve known aren’t asking others what # or what sort of EC to engage – they are out doing it right now w/o caring about what anyone or any college really thinks. They aren’t looking to fulfill some formula or fit a mold. They are out making their own.</p>
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While I think passion and participation are important, I also think that demonstrable individual achievement is very important. Thus, for example, if you are passionate about soccer, and spend all your time on soccer–but spend all your time during games on the bench–it is not going to be a very helpful EC for you in terms of admission to highly selective schools. So while I agree that you should ask yourself what ECs you really like, you should also ask yourself what ECs you are really good at.</p>
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<p>I completely agree; an applicant needs to show passion and demonstrate achievement.</p>
<p>Thank you all so much for answering my question it has really helped me realized which extracurricular activities i should take. I’m definitely going to be doing tennis because of how good i am at tennis and I will do the Society of Future Authors because I really would would like to be an author someday but I don’t know which others on my list of things that I would be interested in doing would be good for me to do. Could somebody tell me what kinds of things you do in the electives I wrote up at the top of this thread? I think that it will help me narrow down which ones I should take part in. I also would like to tutor some kids in middle school that need help in math because i remember the math tutor at my middle school was awful you have to sit in a room with an English teacher and they tell you to do your homework but you don’t know to do it so its really not that helpful. I was thinking I could go there and offer help but I don’t really know if that would help me out with anything. what do you guys think?</p>
<p>Sketrag: You still don’t get it. One EC is not better than another or more worthy of acceptance. No one can tell you which activities to select – all of them are good – it just depends on which ones YOU like and what YOU are good at. </p>
<p>Please read this blog, everything in it pertains to Yale as well: [Applying</a> Sideways | MIT Admissions](<a href=“http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/applying_sideways]Applying”>Applying Sideways | MIT Admissions)</p>
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<p>I’m not asking which ones to apply for I just want to know what you do in each of the extracurricular activities that i wrote about up top so that i would know which ones to eliminate and if tutoring would be an extracurricular activity. If you respond and I don’t get back to you in a bit its because I’m going to be reading the blog you sent.</p>
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<p>You clearly didnt pick up on the sarcasm</p>
<p>I’m not sure why you’re asking this question, as it kind of obvious, but here goes:</p>
<p>Tennis - You should play singles or doubles, but you should play, not bench sit, as HUNT said. You should win matches and be one of your HS starters
Debate - You should be on the team and be one of the star debaters. You should win awards for yourself and your HS team.
Psychology Club - I have no idea what this club is or does. You should be active and hold an office, preferably as the president of the club.
Research Club - Same as above
Society for Future Authors - Same as above
National Jr Honor Society - Same as above</p>
<p>I read the blog entry you told me to read and I see what you mean it really looks like I’m just trying to do this for Yale which isn’t completely wrong. I guess I will just do what I would have done if I didn’t want to go to Yale and then just put a lot of work into those activities.</p>
<p>gibby, you might add that as a member of the Society of Future Authors, OP should write something and get it published, or win prizes from Scholastic, etc.</p>
<p>Let me say that I don’t think it’s totally wrong to do certain things because they will look good on a college application. But I don’t mean choosing your activities–I mean looking for ways to demonstrate your achievements in those activities. So, as an example, you may really like writing poetry, and you may join a poetry club. That’s great–but you can also look for opportunities to get your poetry published, (i.e., if your school has a literary magazine), and there are contests you can enter (like Scholastic, which is a really good one).</p>
<p>I am kind of surprised that you think it would be a good idea to publish a story in high school I know others have done it and became very successful but I don’t know if I would be able to do something to the level of excellence that I would like to have out there with my name on it just yet I might try later in high school.</p>