The importance of leadership and regional/state/national competitions and awards, etc.

Applying to College
1

Hi, everyone. I am a rising senior, applying to college this fall. I was wondering how important big leadership, competitions, awards, internships, etc. are to the admission to more prestigious institutions (UCLA, UC-Berkeley, Harvard, Stanford, etc.) I wasn’t planning to apply, but a lot of my peers said I’d be crazy not to with the rigor of my course load and general rank in my class (we don’t have rank, but some obsessive students went to their counselors and looked through numbers and figured it out, haha).

I do have a 3.95 UW and 4.63 W GPA. In a class of 608, I know I’m at least in the top 15, but I never went and found out exactly from my counselor because the school doesn’t report that to colleges.

My classmates are very competitive and intelligent. This summer they have been doing Girls State, Apple Inc internship, Georgetown summer med program, etc. Many of them do FBLA and qualified for nationals. These are the people with 4.0 UW 4.7 W GPA. Yet, they encourage me that I am on par with them and should shoot for the best schools I can…

I did none of those things. The most leadership I have is with my religion. I am a youth group leader and attend and conduct meetings on a regular basis with my hand-picked counselors and secretary. We plan recreational and service activities and brainstorm how to create a positive environment. I meet with adult leaders to discuss the youth program once a month. This is probably the most responsibility I’ve ever been given, but it is very important to me.

I do other things, such as being a camp counselor, math tutor, hospital volunteer, member of school choir, and a part of a couple service clubs that I love. I am also an AP Scholar with Honor if that counts for anything. The only other interesting thing I do, which I talked about on this website before, is going door to door for my mom who is running for our local school board.

College admission is so confusing and I get many, many conflicting opinions about where I should be applying (from my parents, my siblings, my peers, my teachers, my counselor, other adults, etc). I haven’t even taken the SAT IIs and I’m retaking my 32 ACT next month. I always just planned for pretty much my whole life to apply to one specific school at which I’m already above the 75th percentile. But I don’t know if I should be trying to get into more prestigious schools.

If you guys have any words of wisdom or advice, I’d love to hear! Thank you!

2

My first piece of advice is to not fall into the trap of the high-prestige schools. These schools are fantastic institutions, for sure, but they are not for everyone; You should shape your college list based on what you want in a school and what you hope to achieve for your next four years.

You have a strong profile for sure, and I don’t think your peers are wrong for encouraging you to apply. It is certainly never guaranteed for anyone to get into a top school, but if you feel like you would like to attend somewhere you should send in an app. A friend gave me some very good advice recently: “You’re only $80 away from a yes.” This oversimplifies the whole thing obviously, but basically what he meant was the first step to getting a yes from a school is sending in an app. If you don’t do that, you’ll never be accepted.

3

You are well qualified (at least) for the first two schools in your list!

4

Find the right school that is a emotionally and physically comfortable fit. Too many people apply to ivies just for their name and that is not the right way to approach the college selection process. Look into schools that match your interests. Try college board’s college search. What are you interested in majoring?

Also leadership is very important. Awards are not as important but will help you distinguish you from the rest of the pool as having achieved something significant. These awards could be math competitions, music competitions, writing competitions and national awards are more valuable. If you don’t have awards that is fine! There are other ways to show your excellence through ECs.

5

Seek out schools that you want to attend, not that fit other people’s idea of where you should apply. Certainly if you want to give a few top schools that you really do like a shot, then do so. But it should be because you want to not because you are pressured into it.

And ECs related to religion and other out of school activities carry just as much weight as in-school ECs.

6

Thanks for the feedback, everyone!

@penngirlpending Well, hopefully my ECs do show some sort of excellence, then! Thanks for your insight.

@happy1 I have never heard that before, but I suppose that does make sense. Of my nine ECs (I might be only listing 7-8 though), I had 3 in-school and 6 out-of-school. I believe it is good that I’m not completely caught up in the world of school, but you may very well be right that it makes no difference! I think that might be true especially since I have no attention-grabbing ECs in school or out of school.