As a junior in high school, I’m worried about community service hours/extracurricular activities. I have been on the soccer team for two years and the cross country team for 3, and am planning on joining track this year as well. But I don’t have much in the way of community service unfortunately… I work with a woman for a local charity organization that deals with women in impoverished countries to sell goods, but I have never officially logged hours because I started it really just to help her out. It’s a pretty irregular thing, I probably have worked about 20 hours total in sales for the organization. Besides that I am in a club that partners with underprivelidged youth on a mentor basis, but I only started that this year… I have no official leadership experience, which is a big deal to one of my top 3 colleges. My unweighted GPA is a 3.5, weighted 4.0 with an upward trend and I am currently enrolled in advanced classes, all AP and honors with advanced math and science. PSAT score was 210. With what I have, what can I do to seem more well-rounded and competitive to colleges?
I know this might go against the grain of the board, but I don’t think you need to be the leader of any club or organization to get into a “good school.” (I’d be interested in knowing where you are applying, but in my experience the reputations of “what colleges look for” in applicants is largely hokum peddled by college advisors.) I got into many highly selective colleges by volunteering for local science and environmental organizations, and (this is important!) doing work there consistently. It is a unique field that stood out on my application; even though I did not participate in many school events or “leadership positions,” they were probably impressed by my consistency and drive to pursue my genuine passion outside of school. The word “genuine” is important here - don’t look for ECs that you aren’t actually interested in because they’ll just feel like a waste of your time and you probably won’t get any good learning experience (read: essay material) out of them. Finding your specific passion and searching for local opportunities (no matter how small the organization) is probably the best way to go about this.
Honest answer–and I know a bunch of people will criticize this point–quit every sport besides 1. Are you going to be a recruited athlete? If yes then focus on that sport and you are in. If not having 3 sports does not make you very well-rounded and it puts a huge burden on your free time.
Volunteer work is a good idea. Just like sports tho, you only need 1 volunteer service to be well-rounded. Volunteering to help underprivileged youth sounds like a really good activity btw.
You should look at other activities as well such as a foreign language or photography club. Maybe start learning about technology or learn some basic programming. Or learn about the stock market and trading. etc.
Simply put diversify yourself.
Elite colleges want a well-rounded class, not well-rounded students. They would rather have “angular” students, i.e. truly exceptional in one extracurricular than middling in many activities
@GMTplus7
Well-rounded class and well-rounded students aren’t mutually exclusive.
Unless a person is an famous actor or actress, olympic medal winner, celebrity, etc, their pointed-achievement won’t be exceptional. ** Since the OP hasn’t won an international medal clearly her pointed athletic application isn’t enough. **
Lastly there are far too many archetypical profiles: jocks who swims for his HS team and volunteers as a lifeguard; nerds who have won every science fair but never stepped foot on a basketball court. It’s hard to stand-out with a pointed application.
So for the vast majority of applicants–including the OP–being well-rounded is the best strategy for college admissions.
But of course everyone applying wants to be well-rounded, and I dare say, most kids are, but what @GMTplus7 says is true. Within all of the great, well-rounded applicants out there, colleges are still looking to make a well-rounded class (out of well-rounded students!)
Disagree with bomerr. The most selective schools are full of students who prove deepseafishes point. And they aren’t just recruited athletes or award winning concert musician. Most have just one or two sincere interests in which they have invested themselves in unique ways. Meanwhile, pity the poor admission officers who read application after application with the same mix of school clubs w leadership position, school sport, obligatory volunteer experiences…these well-rounded types are a dime a dozen. They will get in somewhere (the same place they would have gotten into by being less well-rounded) but have burned themselves out in the process checking off meaningless boxes and padding their resumes.
Your goal is to be you as hard as you can which means putting your energies into what you care deeply about. It makes for a much more interesting application, interview and person - and more importantly, a rewarding life.
I agree with N’s Mom. Do what you love to do.
@bomerr, what kind of activities did you participate in while you were in high school? Did you find that the majority of your college classmates had participated in a variety of activities and that those who focused on one or two were in the minority?
and that is just one or two out the 10 ECs on the Common App.
Guess what the other 8 are?
@austinmshauri
I had no ECs in HS. Right now I have 2 really long term ECs (like 7+ yr) and then the typical laundry list as said above ^.
Something else I think worth mentioning is colleges care greatly about your involvement at you current school. (from what I saw of the people who got accepted [transferred] to 5-10% schools)
A few unique ECs are great and basically a must for selective universities HOWEVER they are no replacement for school related ECs such as sports, student govt, etc.
Both unique and common ECs are important for a well-rounded application.
GMTplus7 is correct regarding the elite schools’ desire for “a well rounded class.” However, each individual has to be himself, and most of us are fundamentally “well rounded” rather than “angular.” I believe the OP should continue to work conscientiously and plan carefully for college, but not alter his fundamental, personality- and values-driven ECs and activities to achieve some esoteric “ideal college qualifications.” The foregoing suggestion does NOT apply to truly focused, hard work on academics, standardized test preparation, etc. They are the most critical “must qualify” application factors, in which the OP should diligently strive to excel.
@bomerr - I’ve never stepped foot on a sports field, gone on a mission trip, worked at a soup kitchen, founded a club, or participated in the popularity contest known as “student government.”
My ECs consisted of:
- Volunteering and research at local environmental/scientific organizations (two, to be exact)
- Serving as assistant editor of a small newsletter
- Being an assistant counselor at an outdoors summer camp to teach kids about natural sciences, and helping prepare some of their teaching materials
That’s it. Note that only one of these activities could possibly qualify as “leadership,” a buzzword thrown around so haphazardly that I am beginning to wonder if people have forgotten what forms it actually takes in the wild (hint: it’s not always the most visible one).
You know how many sappy essays admissions officers get swamped with about how much the student “learned to appreciate their own opportunities” by slumming it up with some inner-city kids just to say they did it? How they learned so much from the “poor but happy” foreigners they built houses for in their mission trip to Africa? How much hard work it really turned out to be managing a yearbook? How they managed to score that winning touchdown against Rival High because they “played as a team?” Way too many. OP needs more diversified experience to draw his essay from and make his application stand out, but it needs to come from a genuine place.
@deepseafish
That is really bad because those are exactly the ECs you want on your application.
College admissions is–despite the hype about holistic review–quite shallow. The admissions officer has maybe 10 minutes to get through your application so they want everything spelled out in black-and-white.
One of the people who got into Berkeley-Haas (5%) last year wrote about how much he loved delivering pizza to the homeless and the hole in his heart he felt for these people. Sadly those kinds of essays do work.
“That is really bad because those are exactly the ECs you want on your application.”
@bomerr I have to disagree with you there. There are no “must-have” EC’s on an application such as doing sports, volunteering in a soup kitchen, student “leadership,” etc., and I’m sure a good percentage of HYPSM students didn’t do all of those. As an MIT student, I only participated actively in 3 or so clubs while in HS (robotics, math team, school orchestra).
The EC’s you want to do are the ones that you are interested in and can contribute to, not necessarily ones just to make yourself look “well-rounded.”
@bomerr just keeps giving terrible advice about starting a smattering of unrelated activities. And doubles down every time someone challenges it as wrong headed. OP, do the ECs you are interested in. Spend more time on the volunteer activities you have already started. Don’t worry about the person you work with recording your time, no one goes back to ask. Just make an honest assessment of what you have already spent and go from there.
In addition to adding some more volunteer time at the things you have already been doing, can you be a referee or work with a youth league in some way in one of your sports?
Don’t sweat the leadership thing too much. One of my kids got into U of Chicago, Swarthmore, Harvey Mudd, and Carleton with no leadership (no team captain, no club offices, nothing). She was a really strong individual performer in one of her activities (had a team and individual component), though. When asked about leadership in a college essay, she was able to talk about being a leader by example. Your mentoring volunteer work is a kind of leadership, too. Leaders aren’t all standing in front of the room with a title. They are working hard to help their organizations succeed, motivating others who are working alongside them, and sometimes quietly influencing in the background.
And do NOT worry about diversifying. If you had just one activity, I would say you should branch out a bit. But you have a couple of sports and some volunteer time. You are fine, just keep doing what you are doing.
@MITer94
Well MIT and Caltech are two exceptional schools in that they do prefer STEM pointy students.
I know for a fact a lot of people, as in my peers, getting into other schools such as Berkeley & UCLA were very well-rounded. Likewise with a freshman and another transfer into Stanford.
The UCs are huge state schools with a mandate to educate the best students from the state. Its about GPA and test scores and in-state residency. You can be pointy or well-rounded: They don’t care. They will invariably have enough oboe-players and writers for the school paper. It’s the smaller, selective private schools that are ‘building a class.’ MIT and Caltech are not at all unusual among highly selective schools in their preference for the unique kids. I would add that the freshman and the transfer who got into Stanford undoubtedly had something to offer that Stanford wanted. (For example, Stanford has a commitment first-generation to college students and tries to take a certain number from the local community colleges for their perspective. I doubt they were simply smart and well-rounded.)
That isn’t true at all about the UCs.
The average transfer GPA applied to UCLA this year increased over last year HOWEVER the average accepted GPA decreased under last year. UCLA/Cal are clearly making a push to diversify their student bodies. I would say 2/3rds are high achieving students and 1/3rd “underachieving” students who got into because of great ECs/Essays.
Leadership isn’t about being an officer in a club. Leadership is about influencing people and driving an agenda. You’ve got lots of interests. Think about what you feel strongly about, what you can involve others in to make happen and do it. IMO colleges look for “leadership” in one of your essays, not on your resume.
I agree @qialah and @intparent. You can lead by example and you can walk softly yet carry a big stick.
And sometimes being a leader is as simple as following your passions and pursuing your interests instead of following the crowd by ticking off all the boxes and blindly doing all the adult led activities and curriculum the school has laid out for you as “most challenging.”
Be your own person.