<p>I'm in my first semester of my sophomore year and am seriously beginning to think about clubs. My GPA is 4.5+ UCW and I'm currently getting 12 hrs a week volunteering (plan on getting presidential service award gold) at a local library and other organizations and I was wondering if it's worth it to join NHS, CSF, or Key club for second semester through the end of my senior year. CSF, for those who don't know, is the California Scholarship Federation. It's similar to NHS, I've heard. </p>
<p>I won't be doing them for the hours, and since my GPA is more than enough, I'll just be joining for the sake of being in them. However, do top-tier colleges care about clubs like these? Since most students applying are probably in them, do you think it was look bad on my application if I didn't have them listed? I've also heard somewhere that having these on your application can actually negatively impact you since it doesn't show initiative and it looks like you're just a sheep. </p>
<p>Any help on this subject is greatly appreciated, thank you. I'm also planning on starting one or maybe two clubs next semester. One is a serious club that I will devote my time to and the possible other club will be just recreational (ping pong club). Once again, thanks for your help.</p>
<p>Don’t join clubs only for the sake of joining them. It’s not worth listing 10 different EC’s on a college app without much involvement in any of them.</p>
<p>Hi CatMeow,</p>
<p>It depends. I highly recommend joining them, but join them for the right reason. It’s nice for colleges/universities to see you engaged with the community and the school as well. </p>
<p>The college admission officer wants to match your past actions (through ECs – volunteering, community service, clubs, etc.) to see if it matches their college cultures. </p>
<p>So, in summary, it is best for quality activities (where you can show high involvement) rather than quantity (a full list of clubs that you’re not involved with). As for the rumors about joining such clubs as NHS, or Key Club would be seen as a sheep. As you can see, some students join to just have their name on the list, so in that sense, yes to the sheep. However, if you’re taking a leadership position and managing a large club (such as Key Club), wouldn’t that show significant character and skill? Such as managing a team, and dealing with conflicts?</p>
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<p>Not very much.</p>
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<p>Not really.</p>
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<p>Not at all! This idea just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Most of the matriculants at most selective colleges and universities have done some or all of these things. How do you get from that observation to the idea that doing them hurts your chances?</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter very much whether you join Key Club or Model UN or the madrigals or the tennis team. It matters that you do something besides studying, but that something could be sports or arts or politics or volunteerism or working for pay or working for no pay in the family business. And it doesn’t matter very much whether you are or aren’t treasurer of Model UN or even captain of the basketball team. What matters is that in whatever it is you do, you can show that year after year you’ve taken on additional responsibilities, or become increasingly accomplished, or achieved some kind of personal growth.</p>