The EXTRA-CURRICULAR Child

Applying to College
1

<p>Okay so all of us have our strenghths and weaknesses, and then of course there are perfect students who have everything across the board.</p>

<p>This defines me on a level from 1-10, when it comes to the application process:</p>

<p>Extracurricular (Art/Painting/Design): 8
Extracurricular (General, everything else I've done in and out of school such as service): 10
Transcripts: 9
Teacher Recs: 9
Essay: 8 or 9
Sat II: 8
SAT I: 6 ( I am still retaking this coming month)</p>

<p>Okay, so a kid like me, should I still give Yale or perhaps Stanford a shot with my profile? I have really strong Extra Curriculars and Grades, but my SAT I's are okay, I mean I am definitely trying to improve them. </p>

<p>And also for other people who have really strong extra curriculars, what have you done, in order to really highlight that on your application?</p>

<p>And I have a question, for most kids applying to top schools, about how many hours is considered average for those students? versus how many phours is considered above and beyond. And I mean---total, with everything people have done added up. </p>

<p>For example do most kids have around 500 hours, or is that considered above?</p>

2

<p>I hate the focus on hours -_-</p>

3

<p>Oh, I completely agree.
But the sad thing is that they look at that. </p>

<p>I love at my school, how they don't have a service requirement, because that actually encourages students to go out and do service on their own. It works out much better in a lot of cases. Nevertheless, I have to sit here and try and calculate hours, when I haven't even been recording hours the past years, because I never believed it to be important.</p>