<p>I hear both of these things from many people. Some people are saying "colleges want you to be well rounded" and others are saying "You don't have enough of a focus in your EC's". So who's right? How can you be well rounded and have a "focus" at the same time? Which is better. What if college just has to accept the fact that my activities my just be all over the place. I like many things.</p>
<p>It's not so much what you like as how good you are at what you do (because in the real world nobody much cares what you "like" they want to know what you can actually "do"). A large sum of people who are very "well rounded" are actually rather incompetent at everything they do. People who zero in on one or two things sometimes become competent in those things. </p>
<p>I honestly don't think you can be very "focused" on something and still be "very well rounded" at the same time, unless you're willing to fool yourself into thinking you're relatively competent at anything at all.</p>
<p>I agree with differential.</p>
<p>I guess colleges want to see more of a focused passion, but to a certain extent. I mean, if you were only involved with one activity your entire 4 years of high school, no matter how much hard work and dedication you put into it, it won't look that well. Picking 3-4 activities and focusing on them to the fullest extent is probably the best way to go. Colleges know that you are very much capable of signing up for 25 different clubs, and they also know that you are not so capable of being focused on all of them at the same time.</p>
<p>It's kind of hard to be focused. I mean I have a relative focus in my extra curriculars (writing, humanities) but most of my in school activities are well, Random. The clubs are all over the place. I'm Vice-President of History club, group leader of another club that tries to spread kindness throughout the school, and I might join swim team. Is it looked down upon by admissions officers to be this random? :/</p>
<p>By the way, I have interest in all of these activites.</p>
<p>Well you can really be both. For instance I'm very involved in two things- theater and a innercity sports league I founded. But I'm also involved in sort of scattered things like debate, NHS, sports, Animal Rights club, and Activism and Awareness (we do things for Save Darfur and Invisible Children mainly.) So you can be both but even if you're scattered it's fine too. Just don't do things halfheartedly like only showing up for meetings. Hope that helps.</p>
<p>I agree. All of the important stuff I do is science (with a little math mixed in), but I also do Model UN and Quiz Bowl (for fun, but I can put them on my app anyway), and I can say that I'm at least somewhat competent in all of these.</p>
<p>You get the best of both worlds by having strong focus and dedication in several different areas, with those being in different sectors (math/science, athletics, humanities, arts).</p>
<p>Be an egg. Rounded enough that you're not sorely lacking, focused enough that you have a clear academic strength/passion that you can play off of. </p>
<p>I like eggs...</p>
<p>Lol ^ that actually makes sense.
But I don't like eggs :[.</p>
<p>A lot of colleges mostly want a well-rounded student body, not necessarily well-rounded students. Like someone else said, it's not better to be decent in several different areas of interest than to be mainly focused in one. All of my ECs are humanities/arts-related, so it won't be a huuuuge deal that I'm not a math/science person. Then again, I'm not applying to extremely selective schools, so...</p>
<p>But sometimes it's good to be a little well-rounded: if you're a genius in math and science, for instance, it would help to do fairly well in English.</p>
<p>i LOVE EGGS!!</p>
<p>wasn't it a trend, several years ago, to have well rounded students in colleges?</p>
<p>yellowbus: True. But they realized well rounded people seldom become notable/famous.</p>
<p>I prefer teardrops to eggs. Be a teardrop.</p>
<p>I've never tasted an egg.</p>
<p>proletariat2, you have never experienced the joy of cholesterol.</p>
<p>Eggs make me gag. So do onions and tomatoes.</p>
<p>I love onions and Mcdonalds. The #2 is amazing, better than going to Disney World and taking a cute picture with Dora The Explorar.</p>
<p>Onions are my least favorite food ever. Yuck. Burger King is good too.</p>
<p>wait a moment proletariat2 - </p>
<p>never tastes an EGG!? wowow....</p>
<p>as for the oroginal discussion, I always wondered the same</p>
<p>Shouldn't you just act naturally and pick a college that suits your natural personality?</p>