<p>People telling you that your ECs are just average, typical, and not impressive?
For me, my two main ECs were Marching Band and Varsity Soccer.
I genuinely like those activities that everyone (including colleges) thinks are too common.
Why does it seem like i'm at a disadvantage for doing something that I like?</p>
<p>What am I supposed to do, train tigers at the Bolshoi circus and get a part time job as a bouncer in downtown LA?</p>
<p>do what you like.</p>
<p>Randominimus- Yeah, training tigers at the Bolshoi circus would be a lovely hook, but you’d better have the part time job as mayor or governor, bouncer might not impress. ;)</p>
<p>It seems like that because you give a ton of weight to insignificant people’s opinions. You have no way to know whether you’re at a disadvantage until you get your rejection letter.</p>
<p>Do you mean to say a college actually told you those CC’s were too common?</p>
<p>no, because great minds think alike don’t they</p>
<p>Do what you like. My only EC’s in HS (literally, ONLY) were sports. I didn’t get into my top choice but I have no regrets.</p>
<p>Can’t help but to say what everyone else has been - do what you like. Do what makes life worth living. If a particular college is turned off by such a thing then perhaps you’re just better off going somewhere else.</p>
<p>^^^^^</p>
<p>I mean like when you read articles on admissions officers, they’re always like
“varsity sports, asb, band, but there are thousands like him/her. DENY!”</p>
<p>so i’m thinking the only way to avoid this profiling as “every other student” is to hunt baby seals in Canada or run a drug cartel…</p>
<p>What is ASB? People keep saying that and I have no idea what it is. I’m starting to think it might be student government?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[ASB</a> - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASB]ASB”>ASB - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>i TOTALLY feel ya. i heard from a friend that some people had been talking about how i didn’t get into MIT because my extracurriculars weren’t exceptional – i’m offended that they felt the need to say it behind my back and as if it were surprising. i know my “ECs” aren’t great… they’re just things that i do because i want to. if i had wanted to live my life to look good on paper, believe me, i would have been capable of doing so. </p>
<p>don’t worry about it. do what you love and it’ll pay off. i’m not sayin’ colleges have infallible sincerity detectors, but it’ll be worth it in the end no matter what colleges think. you’d be miserable living your life doing things you didn’t like.</p>
<p>Honestly, I think there is significant value in assessing the strength of ECs.
That being said, doing ECs just because they interest you and doing ECs that will look good on a college application need not be mutually exclusive, you just need to frame it right.
To use the thread-starters example, if you’re in the band and play sports, then that alone will probably not going to get you into a top college. However, if those are your true interests, then join a local orchestra/symphony (I know the one near me always has 2 or 3 high school kids playing with them at any given time), if there isn’t one try to start your own using kids from local high school bands, go to a music camp, try and get some local orchestra/symphony to play something you compose, anything that shows you are more interested in music than the other 5,000 kids in America who play in their high school bands.<br>
In essence, do what you love, but make sure you commit to it enough that colleges can see it truly is your passion, and when they’re looking for an applicant to fill that particular niche, you’ll stand out above the rest.
As for those who say you need several varied ECs, they’re full of it. Those applicants are truly a dime a dozen, and have a much more difficult time getting into schools (drawn anecdotally from the last 4 graduating classes of my high school). Pick a few and do them well, and you’re in.</p>
<p>D and I were at a Princeton info session and the ad com asked each student to state their main EC. They ran the usual gamut except one girl said synchronized swimming. That was the only EC the adcom expressed interest in…
the rest were left to feel like they were run of the mill candidates.</p>
<p>
yeah, see, that’s my problem. i have “several varied ECs” because i viewed high school as a chance to explore my several interests by getting involved in lots of different things. i know i’m “a dime a dozen,” but i wouldn’t have it any other way; i spent my time how i wanted to. sorry for not deciding what my one passion in life was at 13 years old and getting extremely involved in it. clearly i am a passionless test-taking robot who joined several different clubs just so that i could look like the “laundry list” applicant that colleges hate so much. clearly. :rolleyes: </p>
<p>fortunately, all of my different clubs and activities of interest have sort of come together to give me (and hopefully adcoms) an idea of what i really like – science/technology/math stuff and art stuff. so in a broad sense, i do have focus. but i’m still “a dime a dozen” for having varied interests and not excelling in any of them – and if my applications suffered for it, so be it. (i’m 6 for 7 so far but waiting for two more schools, one of which is my top choice. so we’ll see.)</p>
<p>an addendum:
wow. that sounds very genuine. like a display of true passion. yeahhhh.</p>
<p>I couldn’t agree more with Mel’s posts. I hate how colleges want us to have a “passion” in high school. If high school is the time where we are only able to explore one passion, when is the time that we actually get to explore? It is quite frustrating for the person who likes something for their first two years of high school, but realizes it isn’t for them and switches half-way through. It is a double-edged sword for colleges. As for me, one of my main focuses during high school was community service. How can I show a passion related to my major by working at a homeless food shelter? I can’t really.</p>
<p>Honestly, you have to do what’s fun to succeed. The top students in my class are the ones who did something that they loved throughout high school, while the resume boosters are now all miserable.</p>
<p>Some good posts in this thread.</p>
<p>I focus on math, music, and soccer. It’s what I like to do. I don’t do much else. If that means I don’t get into Harvard, so be it - then that school isn’t right for me.</p>
<p>I’m not going out of my way to do what I dislike just to make my application look good.</p>
<p>Yeah, that bit about the synchronized-swimming kid getting all the attention is very disheartening…and seems like what would happen in admission offices everywhere…</p>
<p>When I grow up and have kids, I’m going to make sure my child has the most ridiculous ECs.</p>
<p>Crab fishing in Alaska, Gold mining in South Africa, setting a Guinness World Record for most number of cacti eaten in a minute, an apprenticeship at a microbrewery in Germany, and maybe an internship shadowing a loan-shark.</p>
<p>Or maybe not…</p>
<p>damn… it’s a frustrating world</p>
<p>To go back to the original question, I LOVE one of my activities: Minnesota Music Listening Contest. We basically learn from a study guide that samples classical music pieces and get tested on them at regional/state competition. But everytime I tell people about it, they seem to put it down because it’s not speech or debate or DECA or NHS, etc. It makes me soooo angry because I’m a classical music FANATIC and people don’t understand how meaningful this relatively unknown EC is to me.</p>