<p>im from england so over here universities put WAY less emphasis on like extra curricular stuff and society blah blah ( cos they know students for the most part don't actually care and just join a plethora of clubs to rack their tally up.)
One thing that is really irritating me on this forum ( i'm not being righteous or anything or taking any sort of moral high ground ) but when people say like " i can't believe i didnt get in i had this gpa, this sat score, this charity work. "
Being disappointed is fine and actually healthy for self improvement but the last one about charity work is just so wrong. Charity work is awesome and it's so impressive the amount of service american teens do, really i was amazed. I mean if you compare a student applying to oxbridge to ivy league students it's crazy the difference between what the ivy league applicants have done outside of their super grades. What I find hard to understand is why you think charity work is a pivotal factor in your application? I've had two brothers who have applied to america. ( one got into yale ) Charity work is great but is it fair to say colleges aren't looking for thousands of students who have all done some charity work that it doesn't seem they Really care about?
In sum, if you are putting down charity work as something you are upset that didn't help you attend your desired school then for me you don't deserve to go to that school or rather you just shouldn't have put down charity work in your application cos you clearly didn't care about it.. I am doing charity work at the moment and i don't even know whether I want to put it down on my application cos I am honestly not doing charity work to get into college. I volunteer every saturday cos I like it, I like the charity ( cambridge re-use check us out ).
At my school the director of foreign applications said " oh you should put that down as part of your application " and i thought to myself hmm do i really want to do that? it almost felt wrong. I do not volunteer for college i volunteer for the charity and myself. As my brother said in regards to applications " think about why not what.. "
so yeah even if i don't get in i will still work with cambridge re use. Maybe it's way more obvious to admissions officers what candidates care and don't care about and candidates elementary tactics at obfuscating this innate truth is probably easier to decipher than candidates think? </p>
<p>Would love to hear some objective responses?</p>
<p>You’re arguing against a straw man. It’s widely held myth that “volunteer” hours equate to something significant in applications to elite schools.</p>
<p>They don’t. And those who feel they do are fooling themselves. Leave them in their stupor.</p>
<p>I agree, if you do EC just for the sake of your aplictions, the admissions office will figure it out fairly easily and it wouldnt help you, might even make you seem less compatible for the college.</p>
<p>I work in a nonprofit setting. My organization benefits from volunteers, donors, and other supporters who are there because they’re doing the right thing, and frankly we benefit from volunteers, donors, and other supporters who are there to impress their clients, make connections, or get girls. </p>
<p>If the U.S. system has managed to convince thousands of high school students to volunteer, than that’s a good thing. Some of them may never volunteer again after graduation, which is too bad, but less bad than their English counterparts who never started. Some may find that volunteering becomes a habit and continue to do it on a regular or semi-regular basis, and some may find their passion and life’s work when volunteering exposes them to something they wouldn’t have considered otherwise. In addition, encouraging volunteering may lead to many of our future leaders who have, at least, a glimpse into the lives of people who are different from them. They may have worked, even briefly, with senior citizens, Special Olympics athletes, people living in poverty, or young kids, and these experiences will be with them when they make hiring decisions, voting decisions, and parenting decisions down the road.</p>
<p>I don’t know how much volunteering makes a difference on a college app, but I’m glad kids think it’s important.</p>
<p>In the US, ECs are one of the only things that distinguish between high achieving students. Due to the range of courses offered in most schools, motivated kids with IVY aspirations all have top notch grades. Not because they are all so smart but because they quickly drop down a level if there is any fear of a dreaded B. A course that might have taxed a student too much, perhaps overloading them and taking time from other classes, is simply not taken. Can admissions tell that is the case if the student is enrolled in 5 APs and 1 honor class (to avoid the 6th that the kids know to be double the work), NO. The recentering of the SATS made all the stronger kids into genuses. A 710 from a generation ago is now a 800! (I mean actually, by design of the College Board). So, all the scores that used to come between the 710 and 800 are now all 800s. So, how do colleges differentiate? The colleges place value on the ECs in the same way society does. Dabbling in this or that is not really valued. It is easy enough to tell if the ECs a driven by a passion (hate that word but still can’t think of a better one) or a goal of having ECs for college. By the time a kid has gotten to high school, certain interests have been percolating for quite some time. So, kids who do very well are usually able to show that by 9th grade, often the earliest entry on the application, they were doing things at a level that required years of perparation before hand. So in music, for instance, a kid who is doing NYSSMA Level 6 and scores in the excellent range tells the college he/she has devoted years to music. Likewise, 9th grade activities that include things like competing in States for Math League (which means doing well at regionals, etc). So even thought it might occupy only one line on the application, it tells the admissions officer that you have been dedicated to the activity for years. Volunteering can serve the same purpose. A student who is a community leader by 9th grade has probably put in years of service and risen in the ranks. Kids like that look very different to admissions officer than kids who are involved in a smattering of clubs-none of which require that the student have achieved at a high level to have joined.</p>