<p>I believe that I am definitely relying on a few key extra things that I do to help get me into good colleges. I have good grades with a 4.55 gpa, but my SAT score is not very high (only 1400, 800 math and 600 verbal). I have taken almost all AP and honors classes and have gotten 5's on all but one AP test. The thing is that I constantly feel it is not good enough because there are so many people like me. That is why I am hoping that extra things can help me a lot. But the thing is mine are all different. So many people go to schools over the summer or do tons of volunteer work. On the other hand, I play three sports all year round. I have been on varsity baseball since freshman year and also play varsity baskeball. Outside of school I have traveling soccer all year. Pretty much my life revolves around sports and school. Also I am an eagle scout, and I hope that writing about my project can help me a lot. Even though I have different EC's than most people, I hope it can still help me get in. I am taking a long shot and applying to Princeton ED where I want to play baseball, and I will also apply to other Ivies. If anyone can give me some feedback it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot.</p>
<p>Well, I don't think sports are a very original EC either, unless you are going to play on the team. Certainly, in theory, EC's can help a huge amount, if they show a strong passion for something and an interesting personality.</p>
<p>If we say EC gives energy into your application -
time is like mass, the weight of your EC
and passion is like velocity of each EC!</p>
<p>so we get:</p>
<p>EC = (1/2)<em>time</em>passion^2</p>
<p>:-)</p>
<p>btbvector - that was so cute :)</p>
<p>If you really spend a lot of time on sports, then that helps them understand why maybe you weren't as involved in other extracurriculars. Let them know how much sports mean to you somewhere on the application! Also, you might make an attempt to get recruited in a sport, if you're good at it. That always helps a LOT.</p>
<p>Do you have a reason for your (relatively, for Princeton at least) low verbal score? Is it not your first language? You might have considered taking it again for a higher verbal score if you thought you could do better, but I guess it's a bit late for that now...</p>
<p>Extracurriculars are important for differentiating between lots of highly qualified candidates. Your GPA is great, so that should be what makes them look at your application twice to see why you're so awesome that you should be admitted to the school ^_^</p>
<p>Thanks Madjoy. I did take the SAT again on october 9th hoping to do better on verbal. It is not that I dont speak english well (i am white and live in california) but for some reasons I do not do very well on it, probably because I do not read a lot so don't know that much vocab. Thanks a lot for all of your responses everyone, I will definitely try to make my essays show how into sports I am and hopefully that will help me.</p>