"Those ECs are weak...."- So what's good?

<p>A lot of people have been mentioning how adcoms hate if you're involved in "too many" activities that aren't related and "resume-whoring." I have a question...
I'm heavily involved in 4 different clubs, 2 of which are related to my passion - international relations. I'm President of Model UN, Amnesty International, Editor-in-Chief of the Newspaper, and VP of Science Olympiad. Would this be a negative thing? Honestly, I love all 4.
Another thing...I know some positions are obviously just positions where no work is involved. For example, president of Model UN could be perceived as a pretty lame one - but I have to organize everything for 60 people. Where on the application can I show this? I'd rather make my essays more personal (like they say: "Use your essays for something that your application can't show"), so I was thinking that I could write something for the "What Else Would You Like Us to Know" section. Thoughts?</p>

<p>From his previous posts, pastariffic is going to princeton; however, I do not know if he is a URM or not.</p>

<p>Are good sports ECs the best shot for getting into HYPSM?</p>

<p>Band: Whatever.
Marching Band: Significant time investment... but meh.
Section Leader or Drum Major: More than worthwhile to add to your resume.</p>

<p>One thing I wonder, if you were part of a sports team or such for 4 years, and you planned to list it, is it worth more and worth adding if you, say, won the state championship? Or something of the like?</p>

<p>Hmmmm - it all depends on what sport it is. You could definitely be on the Varsity soccer team and win the state championship, but YOU could be cooking eggs on the bench using your body heat. In those situations, you'd need to say you were a starter for the state championship to mean anything. In all scenarios (all sports), it seems necessary that you describe your role in winning the state championship. Colleges care about YOU and not what your team did.</p>

<p>Well how about this.</p>

<p>Varsity Soccer, Team Captain.</p>

<p>Varsity Soccer, Team Captain, State Champions 2007.</p>

<p>The second looks better. But does it matter? And as captain you had an influential role in your team's growth and performance.</p>

<p>Marching Band, Drum Major</p>

<p>Marching Band, Drum Major, Open Class Champions 2007</p>

<p>That's a big leadership position (and in our circuit that would put you first among over 25 bands from two states), but does anyone really care when it's on an application?</p>

<p>There is absolutely no reason NOT to throw it on there. Adcoms will not count you off for simply being thorough.</p>

<p>At least 95% of students take at least an hour to get to school and 50% take an hour and a half (myself being one of them), thus despite my enthusiastic attempts to do everything I would like to do, I am simply unable.</p>

<p>If I continue on this track would these ECs be sufficient? I know that a few of the schools to which I want to apply really like debate. Northwestern offers full scholarships to people who clear into octofinals round at THE national tournament of debate. Wake Forest U offers debate scholarships also. I have to travel a lot for debate (States include Georgia, Texas, Illinois, North Carolina, Conneticut, California, New Jersey, Massachusettes, Minnesota, etc. Debate season starts before school starts.)</p>

<p>-Speech & Debate Team (Secretary for 06-07) (Will run for
~Quarterfinalist at Novice Nationals for Debate
~Foreign Extemporaneous Speaker
~Congress Competitor</p>

<p>-Crew Team</p>

<p>-Student Council
~Organised carnival, Valentine's day</p>

<p>-GSA Member</p>

<p>-Animal Room Squad (I have no free periods/lunch and am relying on my secreterial status to take 15 minutes off from Forensics class to do this)
~Take care of abandoned animals or animals the science classes don't need any longer</p>

<p>I'm interested in starting a Paintball Club because it's one of my passions and a lot of people seem to be into it. I would drop GSA for it, should I take my chance?</p>

<p>Nixxi - yeah I know how that time thing goes (my pillow thinks I'm cheating on her)</p>

<p>As long as you continue to demonstrate that your time spent in forensics is worthwhile (as in you're doing well in competitions), you should be fine. Good job on quarterfinals at nationals - but work to get to semis. Although I'm not familiar with national circuit debate, I know that competitiion at quarter finals at speech nationals is never too impressive.</p>

<p>Would getting tutored in arabic and knowing the language at a decent level be a good EC?</p>

<p>(i'm a white, mid-western, male, so no i'm not from the middle east)</p>

<p>ok...So i an African American and my first choices are UVA, UNC and Cornell.</p>

<p>Middle States Accreditation Student Commitee Representative - I saw selected to be the student representative in my school's Accreditation Process. This lasted about three years.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.css-msa.org/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.css-msa.org/&lt;/a>
Spanish CLub Secretary -self explanatory</p>

<p>U.S. Dept of Education Intern- 40 hours a week for 10 weeks</p>

<p>Community Service Tutoring - tutoring kids at my elementary school 100 hrs</p>

<p>Track and Field Team - ran in the 200 and 400m and did long and high jump (grades 9-11)</p>

<p>Mutlicultural Student Alliance Secretary- self explantory</p>

<p>National Youth Leadership Forum on Medicine -got me interested in a career in Medicine/Biology</p>

<p>Job at grocery store during school year- 15 hours a week </p>

<p>Alpha Phi Alpha Leadership Devleopment Insittute-
<a href="http://www.alphaphialpha.net/alpha/t...jects/lti.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.alphaphialpha.net/alpha/t...jects/lti.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Awards </p>

<p>National honor Society</p>

<p>Spanish Honor Society</p>

<p>A few track Awards</p>

<p>De La Salle Scholars Program-basically I am in the top of my class and get a $6,000 scholarship annually
<a href="http://www.stjohns-chs.org/course_catalog/scholars.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.stjohns-chs.org/course_catalog/scholars.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Nomination for Washington Metropolitan Scholars</p>

<p>A job and diverse ECs.</p>

<p>i hope i'm o the right track with those</p>

<p>okay Im a california student looking for EC help. Im currently an incoming 10th grader so I have time for my ecs to pan out and grow. But considering I have only one year of high school AND have started some things that will occur this year already, what do you guys think? </p>

<p>Note: I want to go to MIT or caltech for computer engineering or computer science (ive yet to decide as i love computer hardware more than software at this point but im begging to like programming. Hell i may ditch bussiness(as a possible double major) and take both! </p>

<p>ECs :</p>

<ul>
<li><p>Plan on over 100 hours of community service (20 already) </p></li>
<li><p>Became comptia A+ certified (certified pc technician) at 15</p></li>
<li><p>Getting a job at the geek squad my 10th-11th grade summer (may stay much longer, and i have already secured the job) </p></li>
</ul>

<p>*Business and IT (Computer technician emphasis) Academy student 10-12
---Academy program includes job shadowing, internships, and interviews of professionals. Also includes field trips to businesses, museums, libraries etc focused on my topic. My focus is on computers and business (however at any time if i choose I may go into the engineering academy) </p>

<p>*Creator and President of FCEF (future computer engineer forum) This is a club i am making this year (10th grade) where we discuss new and upcoming technologies and design (realistic) products ourselves. We even try and sell one product to a company (like toshiba, samsung, lg, etc. every semester!)</p>

<p>*Creator and President of TOHS donation club. I am also creating this club (this year) where every 4 weeks we will run a donation drive to help those in need. At the same time we collect boxes from every class room for food donations every 2 weeks. Proceeds go to food share. I have a partner ship with food share already. </p>

<p>*National honor society (member) (requires 3.5 gpa and leadership skills) </p>

<ul>
<li><p>Member of CSF (requires 3.5gpa and 10 hours of com. service a semester)</p></li>
<li><p>Created websites for both of my clubs fcef and tohsd. </p></li>
</ul>

<p>EC’s Cant really count...yet</p>

<p>*Summer program (not sure which yet) 11-12th grade summer</p>

<ul>
<li>Plan on taking more technician tests from comptia.org(network+, project+,etc)</li>
</ul>

<p>*Starting to program so ill have some programming ECs hopefully!</p>

<ul>
<li>Was 5th class president, not sure if colleges care because some people say it does matter while other say they don’t really consider it a good sign of leadership</li>
</ul>

<p>BTW i forgot one on my post above. This year i am taking mass media as an EXTRA course for my schedule. I might trade it out for web page design IF it is uc accepted (anyone know?) . Webpage desing is considered a club and class at my school.</p>

<p>Please read the above discussions. Your national honor society and honor roll are expected. They go into the laundry list pile. Colleges (like MIT) expect that your GPA will be high and if you don't have those awards, they'll expect your school didn't give them. Getting an award for having a high GPA is meaningless. Your community service isn't great, but your job experience is. Also your work with organizing groups may help you. I'd definitely recommend using your math talents and entering Siemens.</p>

<p>i was the beginning posts and people said being on the school board is a great EC and in my in post #151...i said </p>

<p>
[quote]
Middle States Accreditation Student Commitee Representative - I saw selected to be the student representative in my school's Accreditation Process. This lasted about three years.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.css-msa.org/%5B/url%5D%5B/quote%5D"&gt;http://www.css-msa.org/

[/quote]
</a></p>

<p>which was like my school's school board..so does that look really good</p>

<p>the post from a few pages back said something about giving points based on what activities you do. i have a question about that; so if being a captain of a sports team gives you points but participating doesn't, isn't that somewhat unfair? there are plenty of times when more than one person qualifies to be captain yet choices had to be made. just because someone wasn't doesn't mean they don't have what it takes to be or that they didn't try. besides, do colleges really want their entire class to all be, say, soccer team captains and such? whatever happens to diversity then? wouldn't a passionate participant of a non-varsity sport or some other kind of less-recognized ec provide more diversity and just as much passion and ability (if not possibly more)?</p>

<p>Sure, it's unfair. But you have to suck it up. There are a lot of unfair things that happen to arts students when they compete. Many times in art competitions, there are a number of people that deserve first place, but it comes down to subjectivity. Of all the ways to lose, subjectivity is probably the worst. </p>

<p>If you're truly passionate about a sport, you would love it so much that you would enjoy devoting your time to it which in turn would bring you up to varsity level play. Passion means you devote a large amount of time to an activity - it's impossible to devote a lot of time to practicing soccer and not get any better. Let's face the facts, someone not participating in a varsity sport will not have as much ability as a varsity player (unless the non-varsity player were participating just for the exercise or weren't serious about it). </p>

<p>I'm sorry to be so blunt, but giving you the answers that you probably want to hear wouldn't be doing you any favors. </p>

<p>GOODCOLLEGES - yes, if the school elected you to the position, and you were the student representing the HS student body, that is definitely something to put in the app. Clearly, your entire HS or at least the admin think very highly of you. It's not a 'hook,' but definitely something of importance.</p>

<p>yet keep in mind that there are sports that compete in national competitions yet arent listed as varsity; just the name varsity itself doesnt necessarily mean all that. though thanks for the bluntness, i really appreciate it.</p>