Stanford Application EC questions

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Ok Im an international student</p>

<p>Im browsing through the apps on Stanford site.</p>

<p>For the Extra Curriculars I really think im screwed.</p>

<p>Sure i have the academic stuff, i've got a few good academic honours like an international scholarship for a 2 week science program.</p>

<p>But For the interests category which is after academic EC's im really wondering.</p>

<p>There are EIGHT slots. My EC's are not nearly as strong as what i've seen people put. Yes i am part of clubs, but no i am not a president in them. I've done sports for my school and for clubs but no im not the captain, nor have we won any major comps. </p>

<p>I got a few questions</p>

<p>Will getting a high SAT 2300 really help getting in?
Do you really need the 'Other EC's' to fill up 8 things?
Will some pretty big Acadmic EC's like national awards justify not being able to fill up all eight of the 'Arts, Music, Foreniscs...other Ec's' slots?
How good is 100-200 hours of volunteer work?</p>

<p>GOOD news, is im still in year 11 and i need some advice on how to straighten up my app. Will extremely high grades push me through with some good academic EC's? Or will i really have to do a lot more non-academic ECs?</p>

<p>Last and not least will having a few research papers published (but not in big mags like Nature) stand out in the app?</p>

2

<p>think of it this way: everybody applying will have high scores. everybody applying will have near perfect GPA. everybody applying will have glowing letters of recommendation. What will make the 10% who are accepted stand out? Their dedication to their EC's.</p>

<p>I feel it is useless to retake the SAT after a score above 2200. What does that extra 200 points prove? Very, very little. Save the efforts for improving your EC's</p>

3

<p>still try to improve your scores. you have more than one year to study for one score - so spread out your SAT studying evenly throughout the year so you can do it in manageable chunks, while improving your ECs at the same time. a common misconception is that you can only either improve your ECs or improve your SATs - that's totally not true. </p>

<p>and it's wrong to say that it's entirely useless to retake the SAT once you're above 2200. this comes from another misconception - that SATs are only used as an initial filter, and that once you make it past that mark, colleges don't ever look at those scores anymore and would only consider stuff like ECs. if you're a smart adcom, you'd still make it a point to look at the student as a whole, which we often forget includes SATs and grades - and if the college ever comes down to deciding two candidates with equally good ECs, a higher SAT score would give an edge with regard to overall impression. </p>

<p>and it totally depends on what sort of colleges you're aiming for. elite private ones have the luxury of picking according to ECs, but if you apply at any relatively good public university a score of 2400 pretty much guarantees you a place. you have to look at the student profile of the university and guess what kind of methods they use to select their students. and do include some public safeties since you're applying to stanford!</p>

4

<p>^there doesn't seem to be a year.. if (s)he is in year 11, does that not equal grade 11? Which means (s)he would have to apply next year?</p>

5

<p>is it? so she's applying at the end of this year, or the next? i'm an international, you guys do confuse me sometimes. lol if s(he) doesn't have enough time to improve SATs, then there probably isn't much s(he) could do for ECs anyway.</p>

6

<p>additionally, if the adcom has two students with equally good EC's, he would give the admission to the one with the better essays ;)</p>

<p>Well, there's a little over half a year left. You could find some EC's in that time. Not to mention you get two months off for summer. Don't worry about SAT's</p>

7

<p>^no one knows for sure - unless an adcom has publicly come out about it, it's more of guesswork than anything else. and then again we make the mistake of expecting adcoms to behave the way we believe them to, never mind the fact that a higher SAT still helps more in the big picture, however little more, than a lower SAT, that often it's not any one single factor that gets you a place (it rarely comes to that point anyway), and that adcoms can do whatever the hell they want :D i'm talking overall profile here, so i'm not saying that you just improve your SATs.</p>

<p>but for you there's really not much time to do much about your application. and joining many new ECs in the last six months of high school would just look lame anyway. you might be better off not doing last-minute resume padding.</p>

8

<p>Actually a few things. First i'm a He not a She. Secondly i've still got more than a year, more like 16 months. This is because i live in Australia and the school year starts in February as opposed to August. </p>

<p>I think this is my problem. I thin i have strong academic EC's but my non-academic EC's are just not nearly as strong as some peoples. What i mean by this is that i am not a varsity captain or a club president, at least not yet. </p>

<p>I still have time to strengthen my EC's. Im just wondering where i should go in terms of which EC's would boost my resume up to standard.</p>

<p>Should i win one or two national awards? ( i know i can do this, if it comes down to it )
Publish 3 research papers in professional journals ? ( I can almost guarantee do this, although it will take up a TON of time )
Just diversify out and join a bunch of random clubs ?</p>

<p>I heard that if you have a few incredible EC's it'll be enough. Any real good suggestions?</p>

9

<p>I could actually in fact come very very high in the state out of 50000 students for our final exams. These exams are like a GPA/SAT hybrid, in the sense that its our high school final exams but that we are ranked out of 50000 students. </p>

<p>What i don't know is whether coming first in the state will be worth it. Is it worth coming say 100th in the state to get some decent EC's in? </p>

<p>Remember i'm an overseas student.</p>

10

<p>it's good to know you have 16 months - that's enough time to get yourself a great resume, and the earlier you start, the less last-minute it looks. </p>

<p>it doesn't look good for you if you're just a member of many clubs and don't do anything significant. remember, any idiot could apply to join tons of clubs, turn up adequately to take attendance and it'll look the same as what you're doing now. so don't even think of joining MORE clubs just to fill up slots. you're not helping yourself by proving that you excel in mediocrity.</p>

<p>since you still have a chance at leading some clubs, seriously go for it. it's very helpful if you show some sort of leadership rather than being an ordinary follower in 10 clubs. so your last option is definitely out - to win over people you need to show serious dedication, and spreading yourself thin will not help.</p>

<p>i definitely recommend either winning national awards or getting papers published in reputable journals - more of the latter. National awards are given out regularly aren't as unique or , at your age, remarkable as having one or two papers published. better still, if you could win a national award for your research work, you could maybe kill two kookaburras at the same time and mention in your app that you've contributed to their endangerment. how unique can you get? :D</p>

<p>if you're from australia and want to get into stanford, you're definitely gonna have to get at least 2250, and coming from a very competitive region in an international pool, 2300 is ideal considering that you're have great ECs at the end of 16 months. the people talking about how 2200 is wonderful come from a completely different domestic pool. so still try to improve you SATs, though i'm sure 2300 isn't hard to get for you so you won't be spending too much time on that. Spend the majority of your time on ECs.</p>

<p>and remember, decreasing marginal utility is a very relevant concept here. effort going into ECs is gonna have a much greater impact than the same amount going into your SATs.</p>

11

<p>Ok thanks a heap for that advice. Just needed really to sort things out. I think my academic record is really good. After the tenth grade, my resume wasn't looking that stellar in the EC department. Starting eleventh grade i really panicked and i guess i went quantity over quality. </p>

<p>An applicant got into stanford last year from my school. I actually still can't believe he got in. His EC's weren't particularly stunning, he had some strong ones but they weren't like national awards, more like school stuff. Also his marks and rank out of the state were far above average but not stunning. </p>

<p>Im still sorting out good from bad. If i want some research papers out, i'll have to spend a lot of spare time at the university. However if people say that some research papers will seriously pack a punch, then i'm all for it. I just have to rank in order what EC's come first. If i can't get a leadership role in clubs, i'll probably ditch them from now on. </p>

<p>Im actually debating which overseas university i should attend. I would love to go to stanford because of the location. However I hear that MIT is better at science. That said, im still undecided exactly on which courses i want to take at Uni. Currently its a toss between business and science. </p>

<p>2300 for the SAT seems ok. Im just not exactly sure how much time i'm willing to invest. Is it ok if i don't captain a varsity sport team? or for that matter even play in a varsity team? </p>

<p>I think another thing i've been hearing is that people say that if you spearhead a fundraiser or start a charity you'll get a lot of cred? I'm already seriously considering starting a charity with a few friends of mine. Will raising 10k and putting that as an EC be significant? </p>

<p>Ok thanks esp to screwitlah. I think i've a got a grip on what has to be done now. I just hope giving up my social life for 2 years will be worth it.</p>

12

<p>you can be sure that stanford doesn't have anything against ranking amongst the top nationally - they just want to see you're good at things other than studying, too. i can't speak definitively, but usually people who get in such colleges tend to fall within one or a few of the following categories:</p>

<ul>
<li><p>the renaissance man. strong (but not stunning) academically and consistently great but not necessarily stunning ECs since they were babies. within the school, they just do better and put in more effort than the others in typical ECs available to everyone else - they grab and build on the common opportunities well and make an outstanding track record out of typical stuff. people do get in by being consistently great, even if not the best, in every aspect - academics, ECs, community work.</p></li>
<li><p>the specialists. they invest the majority of their free time in a passion, usually outside of school. there's a profile of a person on these boards somewhere - he or she basically ran a successful bakery and was just above average in other activities, and got into Yale, with good grades, of course. it could be science, research, charity. even better if its something unique.</p></li>
<li><p>the writers and charmers. they can basically take their very average profile and present it extremely appealingly. or they're able to write very impressive essays and entertain the adcoms well with their anecdotes, presenting their personality and ECs clearly and expressively. and not to mention wonderful alumni interviews, which do help, even if not overwhelmingly.</p></li>
<li><p>legacies, children of rich, famous and connected parents, certain URMs, recruited athletes and more</p></li>
</ul>

<p>there's no need to compare yourself with the applicant you mentioned. maybe he was consistently active outside of studies, or maybe he wrote great essays, but you can only guess. remember to apply for stanford's SCEA, it helps greatly. </p>

<p>just a note - my friend, an international from singapore, got in through stanford's SCEA. 2260 for SAT I, 2400 for SAT II (phy, chem, mathII). he was never the best in anything but was just consistently good in everything he did. he's always been only in clubs (as president) and student council since secondary school, or seventh grade in american terms. he won many national competitions for his computer club (no international olympiad in informatics) and had good grades. he's never been in any sports officially, not to mention competitively - the only one he was involved in was badminton at a recreational level. nobody said you needed sports to get into HYPSM. just be regularly very good in what you do.</p>

<p>you still have a year to make your impact :D two years of social life? it depends on what you want and what makes you happy. if having great friends is more important and healthier for you than getting into stanfordish schools and getting a branded degree, then its probably not worth giving up your social life. but nobody said you can't make friends in your ECs. and anyway, this is seriously a once in a lifetime chance at stanford undergraduate. i can tell you now that personally, i wish i'd given up the last few years of social life in exchange for a HYPSM undergrad experience and degree.</p>