That "4-year" rule for an extracurricular

<p>You know how there's that "4-year" rule for pursuing an extracurricular as something colleges really want to see? Well, let's say a pretty notable club didn't exist at your school before - say, FBLA, JSA, or NHS - and so you decide to start one (before senior year, that is) leaving you with about 2 or 3 years on it. How would this go about? Would "Cofounder and President of ______ Club" be better than not being in the club for 4 such years?</p>

<p>Yeah, probably.</p>

<p>how bad exactly does it look if you end up starting the majority of your ECs in junior year?</p>

<p>^I hope not too bad, because I’m starting basically all of mine then…lol.</p>

<p>^^ Well, actually, I have a lot of ECs right now. But, I was hoping to start NHS (containing an Academic decathlon team), Mu Alpha Theta, Science National Honor Society (containing a Science Olympiad team), FBLA, and JSA immediately in the upcoming school year (sophomore year) but the administration - as in the principal and counselors - are extremely, uh, how do I say this nicely without profanity? Well, let’s just say they work very slowly and aren’t exactly on top of things. I don’t thin they understand the weight of starting such extracurriculars and, as quoted by the principal in a conference between her, a counselor, my friends who are helping me start it, and I: “I think we should just start the National Honor Society next year because I don’t feel it would be good to start throwing things out so fast. Yeah, slower would be better. The process to start NHS is also pretty complicated.” …the process isn’t. What I’m worried about, mainly, is them putting it off and approving them so slowly that it’ll run off into being started in junior year. ://////</p>

<p>That seems like too many clubs to start. I can see why they are reluctant, so maybe you should just pick one that you really care about.</p>

<p>NHS
Academic decathlon
Mu Alpha Theta
Science National Honor Society
Science Olympiad team
FBLA
JSA </p>

<p>^ that is WAY too much. Sorry, but your school’s administration is right to be doubtful. You should pick one or two for this year, and after you have the experience, pick one more for next year. I suggest you work on two that would draw seperate types of people…ie Science Honors Society and FBLA. And then the third year, you might want to do Mu Theta Alpha OR JSA depending on which club was more successful or popular.</p>

<p>There is no way you could be even remotely successful with all of them. You are being too ambitious and will ultimately fail with all of them. Just pick a couple and focus on them. It will be more impressive than starting alllll of those groups.</p>

<p>JSA… SO… AcaDec… Mathletes… It’s like the things I do, only you’re founding them.</p>

<p>what about sophomore year? because the only club i was really in this year was community service club…[i want to be president by the time i’m a senior]</p>

<p>Should 3 years be enough? I was mainly experimenting with different clubs in Freshman year, but for the rest of high school I’m sticking to 3 clubs (I can only do 3 because clubs are only on Tues, Weds, and Thurs at my school - but I do have many other ECs :)).</p>

<p>

You think you can profit from these by starting them all in one year? Be grateful, for your own sake, that your school is slow.</p>

<p>Well it’s certainly better than quitting. I didn’t play basketball this past year like a jerk (played fresh/soph) but I’m playing this year. Hope adcoms understand my random hole lol.</p>

<p>I joined three clubs junior year after quitting two clubs sophomore year. It was fine. For me, there are those activities that I seriously love and stick with all four years, then there are those that I try out at the beginning of each year just for fun to see whether I like them or not.</p>

<p>I don’t normally comment on H.S. life, but I hope you don’t mind my posting to say that there is no 4-year rule. Colleges expect students interests to develop and to change as they mature. What the relatively few colleges that factor ECs into admission care about is that the student has delved into something deeply and has had an impact with that activity.</p>

<p>Impact is far more important than length of time. For instance, a person could have been involved in various types of community service throughout high school, and junior year may have established a major community service project in an organization that they fairly recently had joined. </p>

<p>They wouldn’t have had to have been doing the same type of community service throughout high school.</p>

<p>NHS and AcaDec are mutually incompatible. AcaDec REQUIRES sub 3.0 GPAs.</p>

<p>Why would AcaDec cater to people who don’t try/are dumb?</p>

<p>

Clarification: USAD’s varsity division requires a sub-3.0 GPA.</p>

<p>Lol I just researched Science Olympiad. NOT going to go through all that trouble so that’s definitely out of the way. However, for NHS and SNHS in general, aren’t those clubs where you don’t do anything in? And for Mu Alpha Theta, other than a means of formally administering the AMC, my friends and I are not planning to do anything else. We’re only planning to have once-a-month meetings for NHS, SNHS, and Mu Alpha Theta. As for Academic decath, we’re going to put that off for junior year for sure. The only clubs that will probably be busy are JSA and FBLA, so is this too much?</p>

<p>Oh yeah for NHS we’re requiring 3.5+ GPA UW/4.0+ W</p>

<p>Of course, Halogen. I should have said “requires at least some sub-3.0 GPA’s.” But usually NHS requires above a 3.0 (by virtue of being an Honors society), which would make it very difficult to make an AcaDec team out of NHS. Plus NHS is usually the honor-whores and for AcaDec you want the work horses.</p>

<p>Well… unless you live really close to your high school or you have super nice parents, it’s really hard to do ECs until your junior year anyway. My high school was 20 minutes away by car so if I hadn’t had a bf who shuttled me everywhere, I wouldn’t have done any ECs until I was a junior. </p>

<p>Don’t do that many ECs though. It shows that you’re trying to do everything rather than focusing your passions.</p>