<p>"ECs are important, but I think what people miss is that it's quality of the EC that counts, not quantity.</p>
<p>Ad-com looks at an app with two or three ECs that the applicant has been involved in for many years, where they have grown and learned, where they have shown leadership and commitment -- in other words, they are passionate about it. Ad-com looks at another app with 8 or 10 ECs, all begun midway through soph year, heavy on titles (President of multiple clubs), little activity beyond meetings. Admissions officers aren't stupid, and they can easily tell the difference between someone who is pursuing a genuine interest, and someone who's trying to build an impressive resume. Guess which one they like better."</p>
<p>Is this person being a sourpuss at all the people who achieved titles and such? Or is this legitimate? I am a type of person with ton of titles and such and just wondering</p>
<p>well, even to the post that you referred to, its not the fact taht someone has a lot of titles, but rather that they may be all in activities that honestly dont really do anything.</p>
<p>ill use myself as an example. ive been president at 6 clubs at some time durnig high school, but 3 or 4 of them were in pointless clubs. its not a bad thing, and ill list them, but without my other 2-3 clubs itd definitely be bad for me.</p>
<p>I am like secretary for NHS and stuff like that. I have so many positions and title its really “impressive” one thing is that I joined them mostly during sophmore year and junior year. I really didn’t know anything bout clubs until then. </p>
<p>People say dedication and stuff so what now? I should delete about half of my application>???</p>
<p>It doesn’t really matter if you’re in pointless clubs. However, if you are in clubs that are prestigious in name that don’t really accomplish that much, how are the adcoms gonna know? Anyway, just make sure that if you really want to highlight your achievements in or the nature of a certain club to write about it in either your EC or common app essay.</p>
<p>It is somewhat legitimate. At the end, the admissions officers want to see that the student will contribute to the university, stand out from the other applicant’s, and be passionate and committed. </p>
<p>Just telling them that you were president of a club does very little. In many cases, people who’ve garnered a lot of leadership positions will be suspicious to the admissions office. It doesn’t show much commitment and really looks like a failed attempt to pad the resume. Telling them you’re president doesn’t impress, but showing them how you were president does. You can do that through letters of recommendation, and many other ways.</p>
<p>I disagree. I am extremely involved in my school…people at school tend to say I “live there” and yes, as a result, I have acquired many titles. However, I genuinely did not just get these titles…I know that I deserve them completely. In every club I’ve held an officer position in, I’ve made it better in some way. For example, as Editor-in-Chief of my paper (the first one to serve for two years in a row in our school’s history), I’ve helped our newspaper secure several national awards under my guidance, developed a website for the paper, and we are now ranked among the top 100 newspapers in the nation. Even as President of something like Math Honor Society, I tried to make it better with deeper contribution…I developed a website for the association in which members get constant updates and can submit service hours. </p>
<p>I sincerely believe my ECs are the strongest portion of my application in spite of the fact that I’ve remained a strong student (top 1% of my high school class of 550). I can only hope that Ad-Coms don’t look upon my list of ECs as a laundary list because I am the one who has had to pull countless all-nighters to do what I’ve done these past four years…and I hope they notice that this is genuine hard work.</p>
<p>@hardworker:
Yes, but how do you expect them to know you were such an awesome leader and committed member? Of course, the honor of just listing you were “president” helps a bit but not that much! Colleges take high school leadership positions with some thought because just listing that you were president tells almost NOTHING more than the fact you are decent with socializing and that you are a better than average member. In MANY schools, the “president” of a club just goes to a meeting and doesn’t do anything! That may not be your case, but how do you expect them to know that? Therefore, colleges really want to know what you were as a leader/member/officer. To show what they want (leadership, commitment, accomplishment, and passion) you really need to show HOW you were a member / leader.</p>
<p>For example, at my school, this very popular kid got elected president of an honor society. However, he slacked off and didn’t do much at all. However, the secretary was a unpopular girl who came up with new innovative ways of tracking member’s participation, encouraging members to participate more, and came up with two very good fund raising / event ideas. Of course, the lazy popular guy got SOME benefit of having “president” on his resume. However, when it came down to the counselor recommendation, the rec definitely didn’t help him because the guy didn’t exhibit the things that really matter (passion, commitment, accomplishment, leadership). In fact, the rec might’ve even hurt him because the counselor had to talk about how lazy he was. At the end, after informing colleges about what she did, the secretary was MUCH more impressive than the president not only in commitment, accomplishment, and passion, but also in leadership!</p>
<p>Basically, what i’m trying to say is this. Telling them you were an officer / leader on a resume/list doesn’t do much. However, showing them does a lot.</p>
<p>“Yes, but how do you expect them to know you were such an awesome leader and committed member?”</p>
<p>Most colleges don’t factor ECs into admission, so whether or not you were in ECs or were an officer doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>The few colleges that do factor ECs into admission are top colleges – places like HPY-- and they get information about your leadership and EC involvement from the interview, reccs and your essay.</p>
<p>As an alum interviewer for Harvard, I’d ask students about what they learned by being an officer or otherwise involved in their organizations, what challenges they faced, how they handled those challenges, and what innovations they created for their organizations.</p>
<p>Someone who was an officer in name only wouldn’t have much to say while someone who lacked an officer position, but did a significant amount of work would have a lot of info to say.</p>
<p>easyasabc, regardless of position, club-joiners in junior year will probably be viewed
with some suspicion; also, NHS in particular probably should not be someone’s top
EC. 2 or 3 ECs sounds about right in terms of time commitment for gaining national
level recognition.</p>
<p>My Harvard interviewer asked questions similar to what northstarmom has posted.</p>
<p>“NHS in particular probably should not be someone’s top
EC”</p>
<p>What one’s top EC is doesn’t matter as much as what one accomplished in that EC. I’ve seen people get into Harvard who had NHS as their top EC, but those students accomplished a great deal in NHS. They didn’t just use it for resume dressing.</p>
<p>There are thousands of NHS presidents and other NHS officers who apply to schools like Harvard. From what I’ve seen, however, relatively few of such students have actually accomplished things as NHS officers. By “accomplish things” I mean starting major service projects or doing other things that take lots of effort, thought, commitment and organizational skills.</p>
<p>I’m really glad to hear that. I’m very involved in my schools community service club, but there are no titles other than the Leader. I was worried that might hurt me, but I had already planned to talk about community service in essays and I know I can say a lot about my activity within the club.</p>
<p>I guess in that case I was a co-founder of our recycling club as a freshmen. we brought bins into every class which wasnt done before. We later worked to have plastic and metal be recycled by sophmore year. We increased membership by about 5. That sounds good. I also was in Art Club since frosh. I was secretary junior year. I tried starting anime club with support from art club. it failed but at least i tried. then I worked to get donations for snacks and food during meetings. </p>
<p>Instead of those two, I joined the clubs junior year…</p>