<p>I am a white male currently attending a large public school (a little over 2000 kids) in the northeast which claims to have all the opportunities in the world when really it does not. I never heard of any nationally recognized competitions or summer programs until I came here, and now it's too late to do any of them (as much as I'd have liked). The few stuff my school does have (student government, science bowl, key club etc.) I don't participate in because I spend around 15 hours a week on XC/Track year-round (I'm probably fast enough to run on an Ivy-level team but not to be recruited). My standardized test scores are great (750+ SAT I and 790+ SAT II) and I'm sure my essays will be really good, but the bottom line is I'm coming from a situation seen as full of opportunity when really it is not. I don't even think I would understand my scenario if I was an adcom. What should I do?</p>
<p>You don’t have a situation. Stop complaining.</p>
<p>Even I don’t understand your scenario after that post. What exactly are you saying?</p>
<p>That I’m in a situation expected to have a bunch of opportunities but really I haven’t had many.</p>
<p>A lot of the stuff my S found was on the internet or talking to friends, so unless school prohibits you doing something, then why should adcoms consider it. Unless you claim you had no access to the internet. </p>
<p>What did you do the last summer? the summer before? School could not have prevented you from doing it. You have mentioned that you did not like the stuff school does and your prefer track. That shows interest, passion etc. Make the best of what you have or be more specific as to what stopped you.</p>
<p>So you found out that EC were important to College apps?
Wow… guess you will have to be the smartest kid at your state U.</p>
<p>You don’t have to have special programs handed to you for you to have created your own hook.</p>
<p>It sounds like you never considered that you might need to have some unique hook for an ivy to consider you, and now you’re annoyed that your school didn’t talk about or suggest/provide some of these ideas.</p>
<p>You need to resign yourself that you won’t likely be accepted to an ivy since you don’t have a unique hook. So what!!! There are many other wonderful colleges that will take your great stats.</p>
<p>Your cross country and track EC is good, but unless you placed statewide or similar, that won’t be a hook. </p>
<p>What are your other (non-ivy) choices?</p>
<p>What can your parents afford? What is their EFC?</p>
<p>
I don’t really have that many non-ivy type choices. I included the part about SATs and essays because I feel like I belong at a top school, but won’t get in precisely because of what you said. The trouble is the only major factor I am looking for in a college is one in which the student body is high-achieving and intellectual like me so that I would not be a “big fish in a small pond.” Please don’t call me a prestige whore, I merely want to escape my current public school environment where I am different from 99% of the student body.</p>
<p>OP-Being naive and uninformed is your fault, sorry. Opportunities for national programs, competitions, research, are available just by looking on the Internet or talking to your GC, science teacher, math teacher. So, don’t let it opportunities pass you by in college and grad school. Good Luck.</p>
<p>
Only that there were ECs beyond high school. Thanks for the flaming. =/</p>
<p>
Ivies and other top schools are looking for the kids that don’t wait for someone to suggest something to them. They also end up enrolling a large number of kids with parents that know the score about elite admissions or can afford to enroll them in schools that do.</p>
<p>Since you seem to fall into neither group it might be to your advantage to recalibrate your expectations regarding admissions to top colleges.</p>
<p>I don’t think there’s a kid alive who put in a college application and didn’t wish it included more impressive ECs. Go talk with your GC about what your choices really are. He or she can give you a far more realistic picture of how strong your application is than you are going to get here. You’ve got a lot going for you; don’t sell yourself short.</p>
<p>
If only 1% of people in your current HS fit your personal definition of “high-achieving and intellectual”, a 20000 student university with an identical student body would have 200 students fitting that niche. I suspect that you could actually get into a school with far more motivated students than the average public HS, in which case that number might easily be in the thousands.</p>
<p>If you don’t get in at a school, that might be a subtle sign that you don’t belong there (for any of a number of reasons).</p>
<p>OP- I’m sure there is a pocket of high achieving, hard working, intellectual students at your high school who have been positioning themselves for top schools by participating in summer programs, competitions, and research. These kids are at every school, driven by the need for merit aid or scholarships or like you wanting to go to an Ivy. Unfortunately, you didn’t hang out with them. If you had, you wouldn’t be posting this thread. Go with what you got and apply to your reach schools, as long as you have safeties and matches.</p>
<p>You guys are talking like I have a 0% chance to top colleges. I don’t have 0 ECs, just nothing national. Do I really stand no chance whatsoever to an Ivy league school?</p>
<p>u mean u weren’t just HANDED nationally-recognized awards???</p>
<p>boo hoo, go cry me a river.</p>
<p>
I realize that, but as I said that’s precisely what I don’t want to go through again.</p>
<p>
That (as said by previous posters) I didn’t have admissions-savvy parents and/or didn’t look up the best ECs in 9th grade? Excuse me for sounding bitter, but those don’t sound like great reasons.</p>
<p>First off, people on CC totally overestimate the importance of extracurricular activities. 99% of colleges don’t give a rat’s ass how you spent your time out of school.</p>
<p>Even the Penn’s and Columbia’s of this world don’t require that you devoted your life to research/competitions/summer programs. They just require that you did SOMETHING outside of academics to fill your time, and that you cared(or at least convincingly pretended to care) about what you were doing, which it sounds like you have covered. </p>
<p>When everything is said and done, Columbia will weight all of your EC’s about as heavily as the essay you spent a few hours writing. </p>
<p>Would it have been a boost to have padded your resume or tried to develop some “unique” activity? Maybe. But your chances are far from zero.</p>
<p>Good luck with your applications. Remember EC’s are one aspect of an application process with 10-20 main factors.</p>
<p>
Why not? Just as an example, the University of Maryland has a full 6000+ students who scored 700 or more on the SAT Math portion. I think you could probably find a group there.
If such things are actually required for admission to a so-called top college, you obviously don’t belong at one. I am getting sick of repeating something that seems so obvious: selective colleges admit students based on the kind of class they want to create. If they are looking for students who “look[ed] up the best ECs in 9th grade”, you would clearly not fit in well there.</p>
<p>I suspect that many kids feel like you. When push comes to shove and they are looking that application in the face and have to put words in the spaces about their four years of high school they perhaps feel inadequate. I suspect you are one of very many. If there is a school that you want, as a parent I would say reach for it. You have absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain. If you don’t apply you didn’t try. You don’t need to fill every space with an activity. You have only to put yourself on that section. You run…all year around…that in itself is not a “norm.” Perhaps you have a job. Perhaps there is something you do for fun outside of school. Think outside the context of the walls of your school and think about you and what you do everyday. Write about it and hit send. Make sure you have a variety of schools. It doesn’t need to be a ton of schools, but enough for you to be accepted and able to afford at least one. Take your favorite “reach school” and find schools that are “like” that school, have similar characteristics and opportunities that are less selective. Build a list and hit send.</p>