<ul>
<li>Cadet training (Air, Navy, and Army)</li>
<li>Volunteering at the Cancer Foundation</li>
<li>Volunteering at the Leukimia Society</li>
<li>30 hour famine (school project)</li>
<li>Fruit Tree Sharing Project (community project)</li>
<li>YVR Green Coat Volunteer (Help at the airport)</li>
<li>Judith Marcuse Projects (educational project for youth)</li>
<li>Volunteer at local museum/aquarium/science world/planetarian/botanical garden</li>
</ul>
<p>Just wondering b/c I am thinking of taking on some of these EC's to boost my chance.</p>
<p>Current EC's/Hooks:</p>
<ul>
<li>Volunteer at Retirement Home</li>
<li>Volunteering/Campaign at the Diabete's Foundation</li>
<li>Volunteer at Local Park's Ecological Society</li>
<li>St. John's Ambulance Trainee</li>
<li>Interperative Assistant at local aqarium</li>
<li>Food Bank</li>
<li>Soup Kitchen</li>
<li>Model UN</li>
<li>Newpaper Club</li>
<li>Yearbook Club</li>
<li>Peer tutor</li>
</ul>
<p>I am thinking of going into on of the following:
education/psychology/pharmacology</p>
<p>Again, do you guys think I have good hooks considering my situation?</p>
<p>Athletics, URM status, legacy status, national recognition or standing (in science, sports, math, etc.), celebrity (you or your parents), large donations or potential for large donations. </p>
<p>More generally, a hook is something an applicant has that a college wants badly enough to overlook certain detriments (less than stellar grades or SATs for example) to get.</p>
<p>You really think these will be good enough for ivies or the like?
I mean, when I browsing through other people's EC's and it's like totally amazing. I don't know if mine is anymore near spectacular.
I need good EC's because I am an international and it's harder for me to get into all schools.
And my test scores isn't so great (2180 --> way below for ivies).
Yeah, i was just wondering......</p>
<p>A good hook can be any of the following:
-Under Repersented Minorty Status
-Coming from a small, mostly rural, state
-National <insert subject="" name=""> olympiad winner
-Intel Science finalist
-Very good research (aka almost curing cancer)
-Child of very generous almuni (the building named after type)
-Spending 50 hours a week setting up a program to teach blind Eskimo amputee orphans how to read braile with their tounge.</insert></p>
<p>A hook is not:
-validictorian
-perfect SAT score
-Being Asian
-Who's Who (anyone remember [thread=35723]Hot Ivy's infomouse flame war[/thread]?)
-NHS
-almost all community service activities</p>
<p>Note that even if you have several good hooks you can still be rejected.</p>
<p>Your ECs would be fine for most colleges in the country. When it comes to Ivies and similar colleges, however, your ECs are not outstanding.</p>
<p>For ECs to be outstanding for the very top universities, you'd need things like unusual national awards, heading a national organization, creating a fund raising organization that raised thousands of dollars, creating an organization that attracted hundreds of members and did something with impact, etc. </p>
<p>Just belonging to an organization or putting in some volunteer hours would not stand out.</p>
<p>Far better to spend your time focusing on one or two activities that you're very interested in, and creatively running with your talents in those activities than to amass a laundry list of activities as you seem to be doing.</p>
<p>I think if you show true involvement in the community and show that you are proactive and dedicated, it will help your chances. Thus, I recommend that you concentrate on a few organizations you love rather than spread out your time. Good luck.</p>
<p>I do focus on several EC's I listed aboved (about 50-80 hours each). But I was scared that those are not enough considering the amount of EC's some people have so that's why I was thinking of adding a bit more. </p>
<p>I am still a junior so I still have lots of time to work on my chances so which ones of the above I listed do you think I should committ more of my time on?</p>
<p>hooks, no.
but those will help you tremendously in getting community service scholarships. be ready to get thousands in outside scholarships senior year.</p>
<p>The amount of hours isn't what impresses top colleges. The impact and or honors/awards is what impresses top colleges.</p>
<p>For instance, Harvard probably wouldn't be impressed that a person spent 500 hours filing papers for a charity. If a student had started a functioning nonprofit or had started a program at the charity that they were filing papers for or had written a successful grant for that charity, that would be impressive even if the amount of hours put in was far less than 500.</p>
<p>My passion is not exactly unique. I got into my volunteer jobs b/c my school forced me to. But after working/volunteering for awhile, I kinda liked the experience and decided to take on a more active role when it comes to volunteering. </p>
<p>Hence, I am taking on a lot of volunteer positions as well as some leadership positions. </p>
<p>Do you guys think my list is unique enough? (I want to go into something helath-related as in psychology, pharmacology etc. or education)</p>