How to Impress Adcoms with your Extracurriculars

Applying to College Admission Stories
41

Parentoften,

I still am trying to private message me, but apparantly it is still not activated. Perhaps, you could check your options again? Thanks.

Well thanks once again for your input on Duke Dance. DanceSLAM sounds really great and appealing for someone like myself who wants to engage in one or two of these groups. I have been more of the rehearsal/performance type of person and I would love to be in one of those groups. I hope to exchange several emails with the Duke Dance department and really put myself out there as a good candidate. I think it truly is one of thsoe environments where academics and dance can be maintained without too much stress.

But, I was curious as to how many people are in Duke’s dance program and particlarly how many males? I guess I want to find out what Duke’s need is in terms of their style and diversity. I really would like to present myself as a unique individual to Duke’s dance department and I truly hope that it will help me get into Duke itself.

Thanks.

42

I could be a male dancer for Duke. If the population is low I’d do it. I can salsa, swing, dirty dance.

43

Godfather,

YOU ARE NOT MAKING ME AN OFFER THAT I CAN’T REFUSE!

44

…help???

45

parentoften, I hope that you can answer my previous post

Thanks.

46

GREAT ARTICLE! I totally agree with it.

I think you want to show commitment, dedication, and passion about something in your essay and your application. Focusing on a specific activity or experience is a great way to do that in your essay. You don’t want to look like you are trying to build a college “resume”, but doing something that you really want to be doing and feel strongly about.

A few articles that I’ve found on this topic:
<a href=“http://www.lunch-money.com/Articles/resCandidate.aspx[/url]”>http://www.lunch-money.com/Articles/resCandidate.aspx</a>
<a href=“http://www.kaptest.com/repository/templates/ArticleInitDroplet.jhtml?_relPath=/repository/content/College/Apply_to_College/Apply/CO_admiss_myths.html[/url]”>http://www.kaptest.com/repository/templates/ArticleInitDroplet.jhtml?_relPath=/repository/content/College/Apply_to_College/Apply/CO_admiss_myths.html</a>

47

I am wondering if church activities are seen positively by adcoms or not.

48

Well I have a question…
What if you write our essay about something that really defines who you are but is not an ec at all. Would submitting a resume (not just a laundry list, but the most imp. ec’s in detail) help or would that just be useless? I mean there REALLY isn’t enough space on college application to write all of one’s activities, awards etc…so a resume is a must isn’t it??

49

ritz, I was wondering the same thing about the essay. I don’t really want to write about my EC’s in my essay because even though I have genuine passion for some of my EC’s, I think it would sound like I was trying to hard if I wrote about them. I was just going to write my essay about something random that still shows my personality. Plus, I have a resume in which I wrote detailed descriptions of my EC’s.

50

u guys say be great at one thing.But what if that one thing that you r really passionate and excell at sounds stupid. ie- chinese checkers. ilove it and not to sound concieted but am a excellent player. I was even the founder of the chinese checkers champ club at my school. I have a few other cc’s but this is one thing that i am truly passionate about. But I am not so sure that it will be a good idea to write an essay on this. can any one else tell tell me their POV on this.
Thnx a bunch in advance.

51

That’s not true at all. You want to write about something that reflects who you are and why you will be an asset to have in the school’s student body.

I can think of several potential essays that might be interesting to write about your passion for Chinese checkers:

<ul>
<li>How you have used the lessons learned in Chinese checkers in other areas of your life?</li>
<li>The challenge of founding and organizing the Chinese Checkers club – How you got others interested and involved in it, what it took to start the club, how the club has grown under your leadership.</li>
</ul>

I’ll bet that the admissions committees do not get a lot of essays relating to Chinese checkers enthusiasts. A strong essay that incorporates this passion of yours could really stand out. That being said, your essay needs to be about more than that you just play Chinese checkers a lot.

Good luck.

52

It was a really helpful post. Thank you for doing so. By the way, what is your aim?

53

That was an awesome post (the first one). It completely changed the way I’ll be writing my essays for college (hopefully in a positive way). Thank you.

54

Standing in the dark about this whole process. Help!
I’m terribly confused as to where I stand. My SAT scores are at best, average. I’m expecting a 1900 at most. I have a solid weighted GPA of 4.3 (but everyone does these days). I haven’t taken every challenging class possible because my previous counselor believed I wasn’t up to par with the people in my class who were native english speakers.
Part of the discrepancies in my academic record can be attributed to my atypical situation. I am a US-born citizen by document, but I have lived in South Korea for two-thirds of my life (where I’ve been educated in an international school).
Here’s an outline of my academic record:
GPA
9th: 3.3 (bio 9, CP Alg, Eng 9, Fine Art I, PE, Music, Spanish I, US History 9, World History)
10th: 3.7 (Acting I, Aerobics, Bio II, CP Geometry, Government, Honors Eng; Mental Health; Spanish II, US History 10)
11th: 4.0 (first semester: accounting I; AP psyc; Chem 1, CP Alg II; honors anatomy; honors english; Spanish III; second semester: Adv. Chem; Adv. Spanish III; Alg II, Anat/Phys; AP Psyc; Adv. Eng Religion 11; Speech)
12th: 4.3 (AP Spanish; AP English: Religion 12, Ap Government; Adv. Physics; Calculus; Ceramics/Graphic Arts)

My extracurricular activities:
Great Miami Youth Orchestra (First Violin) - two and half years
Grace Korean Church (Violin for Choir) - two years
Science Fair (first place at international school in South Korea) - 9th grade
Su Casa (community service) - one year (sr. summer)
Chesterwood Village Nursing home - one year (jr. summer)
NSLC (National Leadership Conference) - (sr. summer)
Creative Writer’s Workshop (Summer program at Duke University)
Spanish Club (President) - 11th grade and probably through 12th grade
Babel Tower (a multicultural club I had started at school) - 11th grade
Psychology Club - 11th grade (no longer available in the school I transferred to.)
Big Sister, Little Sister - 11th grade (no longer available in the school I transferred to.)
Student Government - 9th grade - president; 10th grade - just transferred student; 11th grade - transferred to a new school so missed the chance to become elected so I became Rep.
I’ve also helped Korean immigrants who have been invited to the pastor’s house with adjusting to the American culture and English.
From middle school I’ve worked as a translator (korean - english).

I missed many chances to get involved in the National Honors Society and clubs such as that because I had transferred high schools three times. I also failed to win various academic awards for this reason also. Because I had no one to provide transportation for after school activities I couldn’t be involved in sports.

I cannot rely on anyone for guidance concerning colleges except my counselor. And in all honesty, she isn’t attentive to my needs. The pastor and his wife have shed great spiritual light unto my life, but they are not familiar with American colleges and their admission processes. My parents in South Korea are also unfamiliar with American colleges.

Since I don’t live with my parents I don’t have the liberty to make college visits and such. I want to inform Wellesley, Brown and Cornell of my interests, but I don’t know how I should go about doing that.

After reading everyone’s near perfect SAT scores, GPAs, extracurricular activities, and etc I realized the Ivies are so much more competitive than I previouisly thought they were. Would anyone give me some advice as to where I stand in the admissions process for Wellesley, Brown, and Cornell?
I’m very nervous about all of this as many of you are. I don’t know how I’ll ever handle this by myself. Please help!

55

Would it be better to put a few Ecs that are related or put Ecs like this— art club, science club, math club, and ping pong. Should someone put the Ecs that are like this — math club, science club, bio. club.

Would the first set of Ecs be better because it shows that we are more well rounded.
P.S. That person has many science/math classes. Applying to an ivy league.
So it would be better if one puts art club with math and science club? Agree?<br>
You guys give your suggestions…

56

If I was in a club for only freshman and sophomore year until it was canceled when the teacher was laid off, and because there were only two people in it, should I still include it on my list of activities on the application or in my resume that I send? I also did bowling for 1.5 years then quit because I had no interest in it and didn’t want to pusue it for the heck of having something to include. Should I put it down or does it hurt me? Is it better to have more activities, but not a lot of time or passion spent on them, or less activities with more time and passion spent? I will ony have about four really strong activities if I leave out those from above. Is that good enough?

57

everyone say to be great at something, but do we have to be great? i certainly have lot of passion for few things that i do, but i do not own a national award or even any award. would passion not be enough for college admission? do we have to have exceptional skill?

58

This thread is truly right on. I have two Ds in university right now. The first one did the application she thought adcoms would want to see and did not allow her passions to show through and the offshoot problem of that is that she also did not put energy into developing her passions. She reached high and was only moderately successful in her admissions quest.

D2 was very passionate about sports, all sports, she did not care anything about what anybody thought, she pursued what she wanted. She gained entry at 6 of 7 schools, most very high on the rankings, had safeties with merit $, and ended up in a great school.

Her pursuit of her passion showed through, she did not have a dream school but was turned down by one top 5 who had contacted us, she figured, her essays reflected who she is and if they did not want her, then it is not the right palce for her.

Try not to get hooked into the competitive game, but rather develop YOUR passions, not ones ad adcom or your mom wants, YOURS! Wherever you end up, you’ll be happier if you’ve taken the tiime to determine what is important to you and develop that side of your personality. And, hopefully, you’ll end up at the right school for you to reach your potential!

59

What if your true passions aren’t thoroughly developed not because you didn’t try, but because it wasn’t possible to develop them as best you could. I have wanted to try tennis, but have no way of doing so. I play softball, but was unable to play Varsity because the coach was, I’m sorry, and arse. He kept a girl over me who quit two days later. He kept a senior who had never played softball for the school and was also going to miss his practices so she could also play soccer. The girl who quit was terrible and had only eight games to her record while playing on JV. I felt highly affronted for being cut from the team so wrongly, that I would not enjoy trying out again because it’s the same coach. It would be too uncomfortable. Besides, I would have a difficult time making it for practices and games because I go to another school for my last two classes of the day and I don’t arrive back until practices have already been going for 45 minutes, or the bus to games is leaving. Would the admissions committees see that I have passions even though they haven’t been realized yet because I haven’t had adequate chances to do so?

60

How about trying to do local year-round softball teams- it does not have to be through your school…also, could you help out with coaching younger girls on rec teams? If you love softball and want to be involved, then can you find a way to do that without dealing with the coach you dislike. There are truly many coaches who are jerks and sometimes there are good coaches with whom one has a personality conflict. In either case, can you find a way to do what you love elsewhere?