I’m a current junior in a college app crisis. My application isn’t too flashy with extracurriculars. I know I can improve all my test grades, but I’m lacking in ECs and awards.
Current ECs:
Dance (15 hours a week, but I’m definitely no award winning competition dancer.)
Asian Student Union (Only an hour a week, was co-pres in my sophomore year.)
Volunteer at science center (I will be doing this the first time this summer for a total 50 hours.)
Awards:
Employee of the Month (3 months in a row, but at a job I quit because it started hurting my grades.)
Other than these, I haven’t done anything else. I’d like to go to a slightly more selective school. (MIT and CMU are dreams, but I’m not expecting much to come out of my applications.) I know I can improve my test scores, but will a lack of ECs and such hurt me?
Nobody can predict how admissions decisions for the top tier colleges. My suggestion is that you focus on what you HAVE done, not what you haven’t done.
I agree with the above. As a rising senior, you are out of time to add ECs to your application.
FWIW, I like that you are volunteering at the science center this summer and 15 hours/week commitment to dance is substantial, especially if you’ve been doing it for a while.
Have a well balanced college!
Showing that you devoted genuine time/effort to a select number of ECs is likely to be more impressive than having “dabbled” in a dozen. I wouldn’t sell yourself short. I agree that your commitment to dance is clear and you may have something else you’ve done that you aren’t even considering - so give some thought to your activities at school and in your free time in the last 3 years.
Have confidence!
If you are spending 15 hours in dance, that is about the same time that most kids spend on two or three ECs, since you are not including the full amount of time spent on things like travel, end of the year showcase, etc.
Most dancers do not compete. My kid has been dancing since the age of 5, and is a fairly serious dancer (though she’ll only be taking a dance minor in college), so we’ve all been living in this world for 12+ years. Competitive dance is a relatively small niche in the dance world. Most dancers are part of the performance arts. So there is no expectation of awards from dancers.
So, in your description of this EC, you don’t write “danced 15 hours a week for the past three years”
You describe where you have learned, how many years, how many years in each style, how many shows, and where, whether you’ve also choreographed, how many pieces, etc.
Did you have any activities in your Asian Student Union? If so, it’s more than one hour a week, and you need to also write what you accomplished as co-pres - activities you organized, fund raisers, bake sales, etc.
Employment - to be employee of the month, you also have accomplishments - what are they?
While one shouldn’t inflate one’s ECs, one should also be willing to give themselves credit for their accomplishments. You seem to have difficulty doing so. Being willing to advocate for yourself, and to show yourself in the best possible light is important.
Awards are just one type of accomplishment, and, for many activities, not the most important ones.
This +1000. Most schools want to see a commitment to something, not doing a bunch of things half-heartedly so you can put them on your application. And 15 hours a week in dance is a huge commitment. It doesn’t matter that you aren’t at a top level or haven’t won a bunch of awards. What matters is that you’ve been extremely involved in it for a long time. Like MWolf said, you need to give yourself a lot of credit for this and really highlight it.
Thanks guys! This makes me feel a lot more validated and feel like a better candidate for college. I’ve been stressing a lot recently, so this puts my mind at ease.