What do you get from this?

Applying to College
1

<p>I'm trying to exhibit my passions and I want you to tell me, if you were a college admissions officer, what you think about my activities:</p>

<p>School Newspaper - Editor in Chief for 3 Years. I completely changed the newspaper, making it more intense and serious, well-designed, well-layoutted, complete with better photos, articles, staff, everything. I'm submitting stuff to CSPA, NSPA, Quill and Scroll, and I hope to win some awards outside of school and also join some honor societies and honor rolls for journalism as well. I also will have attended some journalism camps over the summers and hopefully I'll get into J-Camp.</p>

<p>School Yearbook - Editor in Chief 2 years, copy editor 1 year. Basically the same thing as above... hopefully I'll win some awards for it.</p>

<p>Speech Team - State Finalist/Winner, National Qualifier, won school awards, participated in summer camps, etc. </p>

<p>Cross Country - varsity letter 4 years</p>

<p>Tennis - varsity letter 1 year, jv for 2 years. USTA jr. team tennis national qualifier.</p>

<p>DARE - President 2 Years, VP 1 Year, did fundraisers for charities.</p>

<p>Hospital Volunteer - 3 hours per week, for 2 and a half years.</p>

<p>Animal Shelter - 4 years, hundreds of hours, raised hundreds of pet supplies in annual fundraisers.</p>

<p>Piano - performed in carnegie hall and other halls in nyc. first chair for chamber orchestra. played since the age of 5.</p>

<p>I'm really into journalism and the speech team, and the rest I do for pure enjoyment and enrichment. What do you think? I'm aiming for Yale or Princeton and possibly Columbia and UPenn.</p>

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<p>Any replies…?</p>

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<p>Your work with the newspaper is particularly impressive. I would try to use what you did in an essay of some sort and stress these achievements in interviews. Your volunteer work is also very nice. Keep it up!</p>

4

<p>“if you were a college admissions officer, what you think about my activities”</p>

<p>I think you have quite a number of extraccuricular involvements. Like Cavatappi said, your journalism and newspaper experience is impressive, and I think so are your speech and debate awards.</p>

5

<p>I would consider focusing on either your writing or debate and do something to knock the ball out of the park. The ivy league schools are looking for very high level achievement in terms of activities such as continually winning national debate tournments or taking a writing passion far beyond your high school. Once upon a time I would have said Penn only required high grades, scores and good leadership at your school, but looking at this year’s numbers, that no longer seems to be true.</p>

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<p>thanks. I don’t do debate - i do the acting part of forensics. I might make our newspaper online, too.</p>

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<p>You seem like a very competitive Ivy League applicant as long as your grades/scores are up there too. Write great essays on your interests and what you got out of them and you should be in terrific shape. Good luck!</p>

8

<p>Truth? You look incredibly spread out, as if you’re padding your resume. How often do you publish your paper? How often do you participate in debates? If kids from our HS did all you do, well… they couldn’t.</p>

<p>Sports require every afternoon in-season. Newspapers are a serious commitment. Yearbooks are too. They’d hardly be able to fit two varsity sports, plus volunteering, plus clubs, plus music, unless some of those were pretty peripheral. </p>

<p>That’s not to put you down at all. But, it looks to be too many activities, unless some of those things were so-so attempts. It doesn’t look that way, but I honestly wonder how you can fit that all in. And no, I don’t buy it that you love to be super busy or super efficient. You simply can’t do it all.</p>

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<p>^Interesting. I actually thought the speech and debate went very well with the journalism aspect of his activities, so it sort of made sense that someone would be interested in both. Sports only take a lot of time during the actual seasons, and volunteering and music usually take place on weekends and over the summer.</p>

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<p>But yeah, it is a lot of activities/commitment.</p>

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<p>I have to agree with limabeans here. Too many times have I seen applicants like this who have so many extracurriculars and rejected. I note an example of a student from my school with 3 main extracurriculars listed who got into UPenn – Science Bowl, JROTC, and Key club. Althought she was in “only” 3 main things, she showed dedication in each and got in. Having too many extracurriculars seems fishy – it brings down the quality of each one.</p>

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<p>Cross country takes up about 2 hours after school in the fall season. Tennis takes up about 2 hours after school in the spring season. However, for yearbook, I don’t go to Cross Country all the time… I only go a few times a week and in the winter I do yearbook full out every day. For the newspaper, I spend my free periods/lunch periods doing it and I also stay after school, as well. For speech I go on the weekends (each saturday) so it doesn’t really conflict with my after school stuff. For DARE, I spend about 30 minutes each week in the meetings and we plan events/fundraisers… so it’s not really so much of a time drainer. On sundays I volunteer at the hospital for 3 hours, and during the summer/vacation I go to the animal shelter. Again, Piano I do every once in a while but I mainly do it for enjoyment; I don’t go to conservatories after school or practice 3 hours every day. I practice a little bit each week… it’s more of an interest, as I said before.</p>

<p>So NO, it’s not as much as you think. And it’s really not a laundry list as much as I try to believe it is.</p>

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<p>double post… oops</p>

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<p>If you want my academic stats, it’s about a 94% unweighted out of 100% at a competitive private school on the east coast.</p>

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<p>stoompy, </p>

<p>I didn’t mean that you COULDn’t do it all, but that you couldn’t dedicate your passion if you end up with a laundry list of activities. For instance, you say you spend “2 hours after school in the fall” playing tennis. At our high school, it would be 2 hours each afternoon for a varsity sport. And yes, I know debate is one Saturdays (my son was involved in debate), but including 30 minutes for weekly meetings for DARE doesn’t truthfully require much commitment. Why bother? (yes, it’s nice to show a leadership position, but unless this is a really active charity, it’s really just fluff, isn’t it?)</p>

<p>I’d also exclude piano. “every once in a while” (without recitals or concerts) doesn’t cut it.</p>

<p>And be sure to indicate your animal hospital volunteer work as a summer activity. That makes a difference. (It would be better if you had a real job, or something related to writing, like writing for your local newspaper, instead of one more activity.)</p>

<p>My point is that it’s okay to have only a few treasured activities and stay away from fluff just because you THINK that’ll get you in.</p>

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<p>you seriously performed at Carnegie Hall? That’s impressive. </p>

<p>Dude, your past-times are amazing! You have a varsity letter in cross country and you only practice a few times a week? You performed in Carnegie Hall and it was JUST a past-time?</p>

<p>That’s freakin’ awesome! That’s more impressive than the paper.</p>

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<p>In NYC it’s quite common for student groups to perform at Carnegie Hall. It’s the equivilant of a recital other places, the audience is friends and family. Some students, however, are part of professional groups, but the poster would have to specify the case here.</p>

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<p>stoompy, here’s something that’s important for you to understand:</p>

<p>If WE start to question how you can fit all this in and why so many focuses (journalism, yearbook, sports, music, debate, hospital and animal shelter volunteering…) then what would someone sitting in the admissions committee think? Then, they hear the reality of your activities, and that’s it. Disappointment and the reject/WL pile. </p>

<p>Did you want that, or do you want them to think, “Here’s stoompy, the phenomenal journalist who really turned her newspaper around.” Show off your passions! Much of that “extra” stuff isn’t necessary to impress us.</p>

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<p>Yeah. For piano, I do perform in concerts though…</p>

<p>Anyways, I get what you’re saying. And I do practice for tennis + cross country 2 hours after school each day… I can’t seem to find a newspaper to write for in NJ… I’ve been contacting them but their emails haven’t been working! :&lt;/p>