Leadership in Extracurriculars

Hi!
I’m a current senior applying to Yale SCEA and was wondering about leadership in extracurriculars. Does it particularly matter if you aren’t really involved in school but involved a lot outside of school? I’m part of a volunteer org for my school but all of my other ECs and leadership is elsewhere—so I don’t have roles like “President” or “Officer” that you’d probably see in other applications.

I’ve read that Yale looks for students who look for opportunities and maximize resourcefulness. Does that necessarily mean being very involved in school clubs/programs, or does it not matter if I’m engaged basically only outside school? How would that apply to other T20s? Thanks!

I think all schools look to see what type of impact you’ve made. It’s not a who claims to do the most…nor is everyone in society a stated/named leaders. But can you show impact, can you quantify what you’ve done, what you’ve accomplished and how that has made the area you are impacting better.

I don’t think that matters the school - if you are doing an EC and you should be doing them for you, not for the college, but what are you accomplishing. Many people lead without titles - in their snippet of life.

Someone may walk dogs at the shelter and take the lead when people come in to adopt - and because the person who facilitates an adoption. That persons title is volunteer…but they are a leader.

Someone may pick up trash in a park…perhaps they’ve led by setting up the group assignments for the day. Perhaps they are leading simply by doing yeoman’s work helping everyone in society.

Don’t worry about Yale. Worry about you. In the 5% chance you are accepted, it will be the depth and impact of what you do that will help. And in the 95% chance you are not accepted, you’ll still feel good about what you’ve done and someone else will be fortunate to have you.

To answer your questions - ECs can and do happen anywhere - in school, out of school, in the work place, in local organizations or retirement communities, on the street, in clubs…you name it.

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It’s fine to have your EC’s outside of school and shows drive and resourcefulness. In fact the usual school leadership roles may not have as much impact as something you do on your own outside of school (with some exceptions of course).

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