Co editor-in-chief of my school newspaper
NHS member (i plan on running for an officer position)
Drama club member
Book club member
Staff writer for an online school newspaper
150+ community service hours
Summer journalism program (pending)
Summer creative writing program
I plan on applying to schools with an average of a 35% acceptance rate and I will major in journalism, is this an acceptable amount of ECs?
Amount of ECs doesn’t matter, the accomplishments you make in them do. If you plan on majoring in journalism, try getting published outside school and maybe winning some awards? Your ECs look decent but I don’t see any standouts, so try working on that?
Quality, not quantity, matters.
Thanks for the advice. I won a local essay contest last year and I recently entered a poetry contest. I am considering starting a political activism club and I’ll definitely try to get published in a local newspaper.
On second thought, you might need to get a bit more involved in writing ECs.
enough for what
For the schools you are targeting, they are looking fine! Perhaps more leadership in the clubs would be better.
Congratulations on your achievements in writing!
As someone noted above, quantity is not as important as quality, so there is not really such a thing as “enough” or “not enough.”
In my opinion, you should choose extracurriculars because you enjoy them, not thinking about college admissions. You are working hard in school, and your extracurriculars should be a release from pressure. Do them because they are fun!
If you do things you enjoy, you will have experiences along the way and develop skills that you may not even realize are important until you sit down to work on your application in the August before your senior year. You will be an interesting candidate to admissions officers because you are genuinely interested in those activities and can tell a meaningful story about them.
Do not worry now about what “learning” will occur or what “story” you will tell. You do not know yet. You do not always know what is significant until you look back on it.