Not really sure where to put this forum, so sorry if I put it in the wrong place!
I am interested in starting a ping pong club at my high school-- I wanted to do it last year, but we went online and it wasn’t possible. Now that I am returning to school in person next week, I want to start putting my plans in motion.
Just going to get this out here: I want to start the club for no reason other than that I love ping pong and want to have fun with others who also like ping pong.
Is this a stupid thing to do? Will listing that I am a founder of a ping pong club look bad as an extracurricular when applying to college?
The reason why colleges like seeing extracurricular activities is that A, they prefer students who don’t spend all of their spare time hanging out or watching YouTube videos, B, they prefer students who have more in their lives than just classes.
Colleges also like students who show that they can be passionate about something.
They are not really looking at whether you spent 8 hours a week doing some activity as much as seeing whether you had activities on which you were willing to spend 8 hours every week.
The only “bad” ECs are ECs in which a student engages for the sole purpose of adding a line on their resume, or ECs which include activities which are morally or ethically wrong.
There are absolutely no better reasons to start a ping-pong club than because you want to play ping-pong and your school does not have such a club.
To me the question is: where are you going to get the tables?
Assuming that you can raise the money for the tables (which seems doable, but probably necessary) and that the school has somewhere to put the tables, to me this sounds like a really good idea.
In general, it’s not a tip. It’s just an activity.
OP may have Stanford, UCLA, UCB on his list.
What you choose to engage in will show them- or not- how you might be willing to explore during college. It’s not about “founder.” And some kids will “found” anything just to be able to use the word. It’s really how one makes choices and then the doing, that matters. Not a title somewhere.
But, kids don’t realize how good it is to show you do have friends, do have fun. are flexible and can give-and-take. Or how much it can matter to be the sort who is “a bridge” among different college sub populations. Some internationals are ping pong crazy.
So think about it. It might be an interesting show of you as one with the academic performance, balanced by fun and good will.
Btw, nothing wrong with some activities that show your drives toward a goal. Especially when applying to colleges with a high competition factor. It’s the right sort of experience building.