How weak/bad are my EC's?

Applying to College
1

<p>I'm a rising senior. I have a pretty high GPA (overall: 3.9 UW), high class rank, a somewhat rigorous course load, low SAT scores (I'm re-taking and also trying the ACT), but my extracurriculars are questionable. I don't have any "amazing" ones and the ones I do have I think are pretty weak. </p>

<p>1) Ice skating lessons – 1 year.
-Since then, I've been doing it for fun, but I did take one full year of organized lessons. Can I put ice skating for 3 years, or do extracurriculars have to be "organized", so I can only put 1 year?</p>

<p>2) Medical Careers Club – 2 years (by the time I graduate)
-I'm a very active member of this club and we do a fair amount of fundraisers and stuff which I am mostly in charge of, but we don't have a President, VP, etc. -_-</p>

<p>3) Counselor (volunteer) at a summer camp – 50 hours
-This is pretty much the closest I have to a "leadership" position - I was in charge of about 10 kids between the ages of 6 and 12.</p>

<p>4) Volunteer at a hospice – 8 months</p>

<p>5) Volunteer at an animal shelter – 10 hours </p>

<p>6) Observing/Job shadowing a surgeon – 3 months </p>

<p>7) National English Honors Society – 2 years (by the time I graduate)
-I had an opportunity to have a leadership position in the club, but I was stupid and didn't take it.</p>

<p>I think I have a total of about 150 volunteer hours. I'm probably (hopefully) going to get more before I apply to colleges, but I've been having trouble finding (i.e. I haven't found any) volunteering opportunities this summer. I'm hopefully going to get my CPR certification, so I at least did SOMETHING that I can put on college applications this summer, even if a lot of people have that.</p>

<p>By the way, I'm looking to get into a good state school... not a top 20 school. :p The "best" school I'm looking at is Penn State. I'm looking to major in Biology and then go to a Physician Assistant school. </p>

<p>Thank you. :D</p>

2

<p>The CPR Certification is extremely easy to get. In fact, everyone at my old high school who took health got one. I wouldn’t bother worrying about it. It’s not one of those things most people bother putting on an app. Seriously. </p>

<p>You can put Ice Skating for 3 years. You can’t put lessons for 3 years obviously, but you can note 1 year of lessons.</p>

<p>Try to find out hours not just “months” for all your activities. Hours or hours/week. </p>

<p>If you’re looking for volunteer opportunities try a public library, homeless shelters, tutoring, etc. There are tons of volunteer opportunities.</p>

3

<p>Thanks - Sorry, I didn’t even notice someone replied to this :p. I tried my public library, but they said they aren’t looking for volunteers right now even though they had an ad in the newspaper. :rolleyes: I think I might try my local food bank/homeless shelter.
Well, I’m probably going to do the CPR thing anyway, since I’m thinking of volunteering somewhere where it’s required, but yeah, I know it’s nothing special.</p>

<p>Sorry:
Hospice - 1-2 hours/week
Job shadowing the surgeon - 4-5 hours/week</p>

4

<p>You can put ice skating for three years under the hobbies/interests section of the common application.</p>

5

<p>You don’t ‘need’ more volunteering. It’s not an admissions requirement or even especially beneficial to your application. It’s not like admissions sits around going, “He has 400 hours of volunteering and she has only 150 - lets take him.” And 10 hours here and 10 hours there is generally the least interesting kind of volunteering - the kind where you show up and do the job in front of you, but have none of the satisfaction that comes from helping to run or manage anything or even engage deeply with your clients. So, bottom line, do what you enjoy (like skating!) and don’t worry about the rest. For the schools you are looking at, it sounds like they are the kind that just want to know that you are an active participant in your community and likely to contribute to theirs.</p>

6

<p>The surgeon shadowing sounds unique!! thats good haha</p>

7

<p>If you are applying to the most selective colleges, you are going to want to package yourself on your application. You do not need to include every EC, just include the ones that are relevant to your college application. For instance, I can see you packaging yourself as a public servant – you have done a lot of volunteering and medical related stuff. Ideally your passion for public service and medicine can be reflected in your supplement essays (eg. I want to go to college X because it can meet my academic interests of y because of z).</p>

8

<p>Well, the 10 hours at an animal shelter was a required school project, so I didn’t really want to do it anyway. I just decided to put it because it was 10 hours and I don’t want to feel like it was ‘for nothing’. The rest of the stuff I really did want to do and had fun doing it.</p>

<p>But thanks. I do enjoy volunteering, but I don’t want to force myself to do it. I see some of the people here (even some of my friends in school who aren’t applying to top colleges) with amazing extracurriculars, and it made me wonder if I’m lacking/slacking or something even for top 200 colleges.</p>