<p>This past year, my junior year, I added 4 ECs - badminton club, anime club, a part-time job at the local supermarket, and a teen group that works with the city government to plan informative events for high schoolers and parents. I joined them all for genuine reasons and really like all of them. However, after reading some threads here, I'm worried it'll look like I just joined a bunch of stuff to look more appealing to colleges. Will there be any way on my apps to show I'm not just padding a college resume?
A secondary question: I'm working at a local community farm this summer. Would this go under 'work/internship experience' or 'volunteer experience'? I'd like it to count as volunteer experience since I don't have any of that, but I don't want to lie either.</p>
<p>Yes, if you get paid, it is work. Colleges do not care if you volunteer. They care that you are passionate about your outside interests, and they like to see some depth over time (sounds like this may be a challenge for you, though). But it won’t do any good or matter about the farm info, so list it truthfully.</p>
<p>$$$$ = work
I think you will be fine. Just stick with what you have. Don’t have a million different ecs every single, they want a few so they can see you are interested in multiple subjects; however, they want to see your dedication and stick a few. Like if you were pres for the anime club (for a semester or two etc…), a regular for the badminton club, and a general member for the clubs it shows you a variety of interests, but you some depth.</p>
<p>Remember, universities don’t want a student body of generalists. They want a well rounded team of specialists. </p>
<p>I understand where you are coming from, as I also have unfocused ECs, but first thing’s first, are you targeting top colleges? If not, then your ECs will probably matter very little and you shouldn’t worry. </p>
<p>If you are targeting top schools, I would urge you to really look at your ECs and see if there is some sort of less obvious connection. Do a lot of your ECs focus on education or art or sports? Is your involvement with the city government the culmination of work in a related field, or really just something you fell into? I try to think of ECs as another way of telling a story, if you can trace a common thread through them, it makes the story more coherent. Even if you answered no to both questions, I wouldn’t be too concerned. As long as you have a few ECs you have stuck with since freshman/sophomore year, you won’t look like a last minute resume padder. And I also agree with kei, your diverse interests may be something you can address in an essay. And don’t worry about adding that job junior year, plenty of people do that. </p>
<p>As to your other question, intparent gave you a great answer. </p>
I want to second that comment. Many high schools now require 50+ hours of community service in order to graduate, so colleges tend to discount any volunteer work on your EC list. My kids were admitted to HYP and a bunch of other top schools with absolutely no volunteer work or community service on their resume – zero, zich, none. However, both of them had jobs during the summer . . . waiting tables, bus boy, camp counselor – that type of thing.</p>
Not to worry. Most colleges care little or not at all about ECs. You can see this by looking how they rate ECs in the admissions section on the Common Data Set filing. So they won’t care about this.</p>
<p>For the most selective colleges, say 150 or so, member of this and took part in that is not a competitive EC. So they, too, will not care about whether you list these or not.</p>
<p>Wait… that isn’t necessarily true. There’s a difference between “volunteering” and ACTUAL service to the community. No one cares if you volunteer at the hospital, but if you are a part of an activity that can also be seen as service (and that you’re “passionate” about-- I use in quotes because I feel it’s too strong for high schoolers to use LOL) that’s outstanding. This is something I felt was prevalent throughout my application, and I’m sure it helped me.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice everybody! I have a couple other longer-term things, but I was just concerned about the impact of adding so much this year. And @butterfreesnd I have a couple of pretty selective schools as reaches, but no Ivies/HYPSM and most of what’s on my list is more match/safety. But thank you for the advice about threading the ECs together.</p>