<p>Title says it all. Which would look better on an application to a top college?</p>
<p>Either that you are committed to. Staying with something is what’s important.</p>
<p>I honestly think that if you’re a minority and you’re working to help support your family that looks infinitely better than being a volunteer (Unless you’re the one who created a non profit organization or have more than 100 hours with a particular organization).</p>
<p>But that’s just me :X</p>
<p>A job because you actually get money for your time.</p>
<p>This question is just dumb. I’m sorry. But doing things to look good on college apps is just terrible.</p>
<p>Obviously a job is better because it pays money–I can help my parents in tuition. Things like volunteering and jobs won’t do much of an impact on college apps. You don’t do these things for college apps.
You want a job to make a living/experience
You volunteer to genuinely help people.</p>
<p>I know a girl, out ASB president, who had 1200 hours of community service and 4 job experiences. She got rejected from Duke, Stanford, and Harvard. Even Berkeley and UCLA.
I barely did 90 hours of community service and no job experience–look where I’m headed.</p>
<p>Well just having a job or volunteer hours is irrelevant without the proper academic requisites but wouldn’t it help if you did? </p>
<p>And isn’t CalTech the kind of school you get in solely on academics and extracurriculars?</p>
<p>^I also got into Brown, Duke, Columbia, and wait-listed at UPenn. And no, from my experience, nothing helps. Its all luck in my whole opinion.
Unless you’re an Intel Finalist, USAMO, IMO, USABO Finalist…nothing is certain.</p>
<p>Wow, that’s impressive. Link to your stats? I’m actually trying to transfer to Columbia in a year or two.</p>
<p>^ Congratulations on a very successful hs career that you obviously were able to market to a number of the nations top universities successfully. </p>
<p>Respectfully, I would say there were quite possibly many other elements to your application package that made you an attractive candidate. You were not simply admitted with the absence of activities. You obviously showed that you were invested in your school or community in some way. If not by work or community service, you were doing other things. Students rarely get into Duke getting good grades and playing WoW for four years in their parents basement.</p>
<p>The point is, it doesn’t matter so much ‘what’ you are doing, simply that you are involved in your community and school. It’s important to have found something you care about be it music, scouting, work, debate, or a sport. ECs are not a formula as you correctly pointed out. Adcoms see the difference between an EC hound, and someone who does something out of necessity (a job), or that they truly care about.</p>
<p>I’m sure your friend will be successful. Perhaps for whatever reason her application did not hit the right note with admissions and they felt she wouldn’t be a good fit. Who knows?</p>
<p>Best of luck to you both! :)</p>
<p>^Aw thanks :] But I didn’t get into my dream colleges: MIT and Stanford. I was outright rejected from them both. Rejected completely from Stanford SCEA.</p>
<p>But yeah, I’m kinda happy with myself. </p>
<p>My stats I posted on the Stanford forum. Try browsing by my past threads. I had a 5.0 GPA and 2390 SAT.</p>
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<p>Actually, I had all that except for IMO. So never-mind. Even with all that, nothing is certain.</p>
<p>It really is random as hell. A 2390 and a 5.0, and they say grades are what matters the most.</p>
<p>bosan: Only a small handful of colleges even consider ECs. Are U hoping to apply to those? Regardless, either is equal. Get a job and earn extra $ if it’s the same to you.</p>
<p>^ I have heard this a number of times. I would respectfully disagree. While there are some schools where essentially ‘numbers rule’, there are others where EC, LORs, and your essays can play a substantial part of your admissions process.</p>
<p>Because my son’s intended major is pretty specific we are looking at a narrow range of schools. Of those, I can tell you that both UVa & GATech use a ‘holistic’ admissions process. I will not make assumptions on the Ivys as we didn’t look into them. He wasn’t interested, and not in the budget. 
GATech made it clear that the change from a ‘numbers only’ admissions to a more ‘holistic’ approach has been adopted over the last 5 years. You may say ‘these are not Iveys’. Well no, however they are nationally recognized as top universities so I do think the point is valid. I doubt they are the only ones with this approach.</p>
<p>I am certainly not arguing what your experience has been, simply offering that we have found that at some top universities it does matter.</p>
<p>blue: It doesn’t surprise me that some more traditional publics are also creeping over to more holistic readings. Again, I would charge the OP with finding out if the school in question uses this measurement or not.</p>
<p>I am looking into Middlebury, Swarthmore, UChicago, and Brown.</p>
<p>As long as you have something to do in your free time instead of playing video games and posting to cc…</p>