<p>To get into great privates (JHU, Northwestern, UC, Duke, etc.) what kind of ECs do they look for?
I have awards at major MUN conferences and I've placed 1st in a few district debate tournaments and hopefully will be placing/1st at the state tournament this year (I'm a junior). My awards for MUN and debate will be there. As will leadership, I will be debate captain and MUN club president.
I have won Gold Medal awards for the National Russian Essay and National Spanish Exam. I am gojng to be in NHS, National Slavic Honor Society, National Spanish Honor Society, National History Honor Society, and National English Honor Society.
I play varsity volleyball and will be the team captain next year. I will probably be 2nd team all district and 1st team all academic this year and next.</p>
<p>I also have like 200-300+ community service hours.</p>
<p>Are these the Extracurriculars these colleges look at? What should I add?</p>
<p>Also how important are hooks? I'm a middle class white male. But in 2007-2008 both of my parents lost their jobs and all of their assets were lost, which was a huge blow to us. They have both had difficulty finding new jobs and ATM our income is around 50k, and I have a younger brother and an older one at William and Mary.
They are both religious refugees from Azerbaijan fleeing ethnic persecution in 1990.
I know I dont have much of a hook, but is it really that important?</p>
<p>Also for ECs I worked as a soccer ref around my region for 2 years. I stopped a few months ago and will be getting a real job this winter.
Do they care about employment much?</p>
<p>Also I was the Sophomore Class Treasurer last year. Idk if they care about class president and stuff, but idk.</p>
<p>And over the summer I am planning to do enrichment camps like Boys State and a leadership enrichment camp at the Sorensen Institute at UVA.
Do colleges care about this stuff?</p>
<p>Also as for classic fluff I have leadership positions in the school Libertarian club and yeah…</p>
<p>You have great EC’s, awards, and leadership positions. Honestly, your resume will doubtless look very impressive to colleges. To answer your questions: (1) Yes, these are the EC’s that colleges will look at. (2) Never add an EC just to pad your resume. Only do things that you are actually interested in and are passionate about. (3) Hooks are not all-important. There are many un-hooked applicants that are accepted to elite colleges every year. My advice to you is to put all of the things that you typed above in your application. You should stop worrying about your EC’s and concentrate on more important things on your app like your transcript (grades) and test scores.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot!
I know that ECs and some of that kind of stuff are surprisingly important to colleges. So I wanted to make sure I was hitting the mark.</p>
<p>Everyone has their strengths. My grades are probably much worse than yours :P</p>
<p>But I want to make sure my app is well rounded. I read kids here with like science lab research and all this tutoring and stuff. And I’m not into that. I do what I enjoy and keep it chill.</p>