Silly Concern

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
1

<p>This is probably a stupid question, but I might as well ask it:</p>

<p>I moved to a new country a few months ago.
There are far less extracurriculars here than my old school, which was a highly regarded and affluent public school. There I would've been involved with 5 or 6 clubs, likely been an officer in all of them, state officer for one. I was actually interested in all of the clubs; they were science/writing/business oriented. </p>

<p>Here, there are far less clubs and there's only one that I actually care about: Speech/Debate. I spend lots of time reading and writing speeches, attending meetings and so forth.
Besides that, I am also involved in scientific research (not resume booster stuff). I did that the summer before I moved as well. I am also hoping to start shadowing doctors soon. </p>

<p>Anyways, everyone here does a lot of (what I consider) pointless clubs that I don't really care about, that usually involve hospital volunteering, school volunteering, school wellness, stuff like that.
It's not that I dislike volunteering, I volunteered at a hospital myself last summer, but my volunteering experience was really dull and involved filing papers and other dull work.</p>

<p>Coupled with that and the fact that I'm pretty busy here, I don't really want to join any of these kinds of clubs. I also will start taking/auditing university classes soon because my school doesn't have very many resources/classes in the subjects that interest me. This will probably add to my workload.</p>

<p>With this in mind, it doesn't make much sense to join these clubs, but I get nervous whenever i look over stats threads and kids have a multitude of clubs/activities listed. </p>

<p>Do you guys think that I should just stick to what I'm doing now or start doing additional volunteering/clubs? It's probably silly, but I feel scared when I hear about kids doing 7+ activities (and these kids end up getting into the colleges that I want to go to). </p>

<p>Thanks to everyone who had the patience to read through my ramble/answer my question!
You guys are awesome :)</p>

2

<p>Sorry, I understand how stupid I must sound; I am just afraid of demolishing my chances at H and it’s peer schools by not doing volunteering/ many clubs. People often say depth > breadth, but it seems like everyone accepted did many clubs.</p>

3

<p>I think that’s fine. The one thing–and I am very unsure of this, because premed is not my field of expertise–is that you might want to get involved in the hospital volunteering. I think that’s important for that. If it’s a completely stupid club, don’t bother, but they might have a more meaningful setup than your last try.</p>

4

<p>Thanks for the advice, exultationsy. At the old school, I was more or less promised leadership positions in everything, and I knew it would be for things that I enjoy.</p>

<p>Here, it’s like student wellness action committees or things like that, which are nice, but I don’t them particularly interesting or engaging. I will look into it and see if I can make my own clubs (MUN, mainly) and maybe a science one so that I can pursue my own interests. </p>

<p>I don’t want to be a chronic club joiner, but I also don’t want to have empty spaces on my application :-/.</p>

<p>Does anyone else have any advice or thoughts regarding this?</p>

<p>Thanks! you all are awesome! </p>

<p>(and congrats to the recently accepted, deferred and rejected applicants - you all obviously care a lot about your education to even be on here, and I’m sure that you will all go far in life :slight_smile: )</p>