<p>Is it possible to get into say, WashU or Northwestern, with below average/mediocre/lacking leadership ECs? Are ECs THAT important?</p>
<p>anythings possible</p>
<p>Yes, it’s very possible. Yes, they’re important, but they won’t make or break an application.</p>
<p>Also, WashU values demonstrated interest a lot; that could be more important than EC’s to them.</p>
<p>Would a college visit to WashU and attending a high school college visit from a college rep. be adequate as demonstrating interest?</p>
<p>^I assume so. They do make you fill out that little card so they can keep track of you having been there.</p>
<p>For any more assessment, you’d have to define “not-so-stellar.” xD</p>
<p>eh..mediocre i’d say.</p>
<p>I didnt join any clubs til junior year so I guess it’d look peculiar that I joined a bunch in one year. The reason being I didnt know ECs were considered so significant to colleges.</p>
<p>National Art Honor Society - Secretary (we rarely have officer meetings and we don’t do much) 11
FBLA 11
Youth Court 11
KAYS Club (community service club) 11
worked at Culver’s restaurant 9, 10
French Honor Society 11
National Honor Society 12 (inducted this year, officially joining next year)
Community service at Univ. of MO - KC over the summer 10</p>
<p>nothing stellar =/</p>
<p>Just my opinion - I can’t say for sure one way or the other. </p>
<p>But my ECs aren’t amazing (they do have depth and leadership, but I’m not a professional pianist or a superwoman who does 12 clubs a day like a lot of the people on CC), and I got into UW.</p>
<p>If all of the other elements are there, I don’t think you’d get rejected because of your ECs. They’re not as mediocre as you think.</p>
<p>UW? University of Washington?</p>
<p>usually colleges like to see students with some kind of passion, and EC is pretty much where they look for it.</p>
<p>UW=University of Washington, yes. :)</p>
<p>Spazattack,
I do think Hanajima is mixing up WashU (WUSTL) with the University of Washington.</p>
<p>I know 2 kids from my son’s class that were accepted at WashU with mediocre ECs. One is a female with 2100ish SAT/UW 3.6GPA and the male had even lesser scores & grades but plays football. </p>
<p>So you never can tell.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>Whoops, my bad. Thanks for pointing that out. xP My, these abbreviations are confusing. I’ll try to not be such a total idiot next time, and just google the abbreviation.</p>
<p>But my opinion does still stand. I don’t think those ECs are that mediocre.</p>
<p>It’s just a balancing act really. I mean, everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, you’ve just got to play up yours. If you’ve got great test scores, rank, and essays, maybe you don’t need as good of ECs or rec letters. imo, it’s better to have a couple outstanding selling points on your application than to do everything just satisfactorily. </p>
<p>That said, WashU is like HYP and some of the other top-tier schools in that it DOES look much further into your app than the test scores. Again, you can compensate in other ways besides ECs, though.</p>
<p>Northwestern, on the other hand, I believe would probably put more weight on outstanding scores and not necessarily look at the entire package as much, if you had great test scores that is. Furthermore, it’s traditionally just easier to be admitted to NU than WashU.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>oh…just thought of this… surely you’re not a senior this year so I’ll go ahead and recommend this since you still have time… Often, a good way to compensate for bad ECs is to do some kind of great service project. One you initiate and carry out yourself would definitely be the most impressive, but if you have the opportunity to help out abroad or do any kind of engaging volunteer work, you can make up EC ground pretty quickly with that as well. You just need to show that you care about your community and/or you have a strong, proactive drive to be successful at whatever you choose to do.</p>