What to do about ECs

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>I'm currently a sophomore, and I haven't been involved inside or outside of school at all. My goal is to get into a top university. Academically, I'm strong enough to be competitive enough for the top universities,but without extracurricular activities I don't stand a chance on getting accepted. Here's my problem: My school doesn't offer many ECs. We have a like a history club, a diversity group, SADD, NHS, yearbook, PPI, and student council. And of course sports,band, choir, and drama. </p>

<p>History club- I really don't want to join, since they meet up like once a month. I'd rather be a part of something where I would be more involved. </p>

<p>Diversity group- Not really my type of thing, but I've considered doing it. The thing is they never really give students the opportunity to join. </p>

<p>SADD- Pretty much the same as diversity. </p>

<p>NHS- For 11th and 12th graders only. I plan on joining. </p>

<p>yearbook- I haven't heard anything about yearbook, but I would consider joining if I had
the opportunity. </p>

<p>PPI-Teachers choose a few kids each year. Most of the kids that get chosen are smart, well known, and highly involved students. </p>

<p>Student Council- You get in by election only. I'm considering running for a representative position, since the elections are pretty much a joke I should be able to get in junior and senior year. </p>

<p>So here's my plan for junior and senior year:
Volunteering ( Just local projects. I'll probably get 250+ hours) </p>

<p>Tutoring-I've been trying to contact the guy who runs the tutoring program at the local library, but I have had little success. Hopefully I will be able to do that. I think I would do very well tutoring, and I'm good with ideas and I already have plans on expanding the program to include summer tutoring sessions and weekend sessions. I really want to be heavily involved with this program, so I should probably be able to do it for over 500 hours. </p>

<p>NHS</p>

<p>Student council- If I get elected. Student Council is a class "student government", if you are elected. So I'm a bit apprehensive to having it block my schedule from taking Ap's. </p>

<p>Track-I think I'm going to do track in the spring junior and senior year. </p>

<p>Soccer or Cross country- I'm thinking about doing one of these two sports in the fall of my junior and senior years. </p>

<p>Hopefully, going from obese to normal weight, along with me coming out of my shell becoming a social person will make up for the lack of ec's Freshmen and sophomore years. </p>

<p>So what do you think? What else can/should I do? Do I stand a chance to being competitive for top schools? Will colleges look past 2 years of doing nothing? Is my plan for junior and senior year good enough?</p>

2

<p>Stop. You’ve come to the point of just joining a sport for the heck of it? Don’t be that person. Love the sport and have complete passion for it. Also, if you don’t plan to varsity on the sports, colleges will just throw it off. You seem to just be joining all these ECs for college, and colleges can see right through that. Do it not to satisfy adcoms but yourself. Try starting a club you would be interested AND committed in. You have some time.</p>

3

<p>When colleges see someone who is part of the key club, math team, 2 years jv basketball, and diversity club, they give the person “club joiner status”. Meaning they aren’t really interested or passionate about anything, which in many cases is a setback in terms of admissions. Find something you like, get good at it, and show that you love doing it. It can be a sport, a club, or something else. I saw this person on CC who participated in national origami competitions, created her own origami book, and has a youtube channel about origami with 80,000 subscribers… and she got into Penn. Granted, origami may be a bit too quirky for your taste, but find something and demonstrate passion in it.</p>

4

<p>I’m sorry that what I said was interpreted that way. I really love soccer; I played for 4-5 years. I’ve been unable to play the last few years due to my weight. I would definitely make varsity. As for track and cross country there are only varsity teams. Even though I’m not passionate about track or cross country, I still want to try them out. Our passions in life don’t always come to us naturally, we have to find them. That’s why I really want to try cross country and track out. As for my other proposed things, I’m only passionate on a few of them. I’ve done volunteering before and liked it, but it’s not really something that I’m too passionate about. Albeit, I haven’t done much volunteering, so it could become something that I’m passionate about. Ever since I found out about the local tutoring program, I’ve been dieing to join. I really think I would be passionate about it. I would love to help children with there educational journey. It would be awesome to know that I would have an effect on a child’s life. Like I said before, I"m a person with a lot of ideas on how to improve things. I’ve already considered ways to expand and improve the program, and I’m not even apart of it yet. I really want to be heavily involved in the tutoring program, if I am able to get in contact with the guy who runs it. I also want to do NHS and student council. They both are in charge of running various school events and helping out in the school and community. The three things that I’m really passionate about right now are debate, finance, and educational reform. I really love to argue/debate with people. I would love to join a debate club, but our school got rid of the debate club a few years ago for some reason. Finance- I love following finance news and watching the stock market. I think it would be cool to have an investment or finance club. Educational reform- As I previously mentioned, I’m an ideas guy. I’m always coming up with ways for the school and district to save money and spend more on improving the educational environment. Such as ending busing for the high school and middle school and putting the money back into classroom/technology improvements to improve the impoverished learning environment. I would also propose money being spent on after school activities, so students can stay after and do homework and participate in clubs, while waiting for a ride home. I’ve even considered a few proposals for educational reform at the state level. One of which would save the state over $250 million and allow high school students to save nearly $10,000 each in college costs, and that’s only a few things that my proposal would do. I’m considering joining the school improvement team ( Teachers, admins, and parents mostly) , so I can put my ideas out there. But I’m hesitant in joining, since they only meet every few months. I would love to have a school improvement team that works on issues every week, that is composed of students, and that works on issues on a school and district level. </p>

<p>I have a ton of ideas, and I truly believe that my ideas will shape my future college prospects. It will all depend on whether I stand up and speak my mind or keep these things to myself.</p>

5

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<p>That is a gigantic wall of text…</p>

6

<p>^AGREED. Btw, dieing → dying…sorry, its a pet peeve.</p>

<p>Like other posters have said, just try to focus on one of those things that you wrote about in that mass of…words. It’s ok to have diverse intrests, God knows I do. Just try to focus on one of them really passionately while still being strongly interested in the rest. I’m a sophomore too, by the way, so good luck!</p>

7

<p>I’m only in one thing at my school: FFA. This is something I really like doing.</p>

8

<p>Read How to be a High School Superstar by Cal Newport.</p>

9

<p>Do soccer if you love it.</p>