<p>I'm a junior on CC, so obviously I'm already freaking out about applications. Mainly, I'm worried that my list of ECs is way too thin.</p>
<p>I do have a passion of sorts... & that's my school's yearly literary magazine. I've been a member since freshman year and editor-in-chief since sophomore year. The mag is my baby, but sadly, it hasn't won awards or anything amazing like that.</p>
<p>I'm news editor for my school's newspaper (a pretty significant responsibility).</p>
<p>I also volunteer 1 hr/week for Big Brothers Big Sisters, participate in Peer Mediation (insignificant), and work as a camp counselor 35+hrs/week during summer.
And that's it.
!!</p>
<p>I look at all these laundry lists of ECs - I don't necessarily have a bad view of them, they're just not for me - on CC and I feel so intimidated! And then there's the people who are editor-in-chief of the lit mag AND the school newspaper AND they're president of X club AND they volunteer a billion hours a week... I feel like I have nothing... ah ha ha</p>
<p>I've also only won like, two awards/recognitions (a couple local for photography, 1 state-wide for writing). </p>
<p>Am in trouble here? My grades/projected scores are good enough for Top 20 schools. My ultimate dream is to get into Brown or a similar LAC. but everyone else has great scores and grades and they get in because they are amazing outside of school ("Bob Dylan with good SAT scores")...
Any suggestions? My mom said I should get a part-time job to show my willingness to work hard. I'm getting my license soon, so that's a possibility, although I'm worried I would have a panic attack because I already feel overworked from school.</p>
<p>This forum != normal applicants. Most people do not dedicate this kind of time doing ECs they only care about for college, and most colleges don't really care that much about ECs.</p>
<p>Well, sorry if I misinterpreted the purpose of the forum. But just to clear things up, the reason I'm worried is because I only did the EC's I really wanted to do, for me, not for college. Which resulted in having not many EC's. </p>
<p>Anyway, I hope what you say about colleges not caring is right. I'm probably overreacting.</p>
<p>What i meant was that the people who post here are not normal college applicants, and devote far more time to ECs that they think colleges want to see. CC does not represent a general cross section of HS seniors at all</p>
<p>First off, most colleges admit based on grades and scores with only the slightest (if any) attention paid to ECs. So you'll have a lot of good colleges to choose from. But that isn't you; you want "top 20". Fine, I'm sure you have your reasons.</p>
<p>However at these schools the competition is very keen for admissions, and they DO use EC's to guide their decisions. Yours are mediocre for that applicant pool. If you want to see what competitive ECs look like, read the posts by NSM (a Harvard alumni interviewer) at <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/210497-those-ecs-weak-so-what-s-good.html%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/210497-those-ecs-weak-so-what-s-good.html</a></p>
<p>Or you can take a look at what Stanford says in its FAQ and decide how yours measure up
[quote]
Students often assume our primary concern is the number of activities in which one participates. In fact, an exceptional depth of experience in one or two activities may demonstrate your passion more than minimal participation in five or six clubs. We want to see the impact you have had on that club, in your school, or in the larger community, and we want to learn of the impact that experience has had on you.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>BTW, how come on your 4/28/08 post you wrote "Hello all. I'm a freshman in high school." and now in October you're a junior? That's a pretty accelerated HS program!!</p>