I will be an junior next year and my lack of ECs is worrying me. Here’s a list of ECs im now or will join next year.
Varsity tennis
Piano
Key club
FBLA
Envirothon
Library volunteering
Peer tutoring
Club that creates lessons and teaches middle schoolers about dangers of smoking/drugs
Tennis, key club, and volunteering are the only ones ive done before. The others are ones im joining next year. I had some other clubs last year but meetings were very rare and almost no time were put into them. My dream school has been Cornell(AEM) after deciding business/finance is what I wanted to do. Are my extracurriculars good enough for a school like Cornell?
It’s about quality not quantity
You have more than enough extracurriculars (remember that commonapp only allows you to list 10)
Its better to have focused a lot on one or two extracurriculars and become recognized for it than to have a list of activities that are there just for the sake of participation.
That’s what I’m worried about. I enjoy doing all of these things but I don’t have any major award or anything to show for it. I may get something for FBLA but that’s it. I’ll also get officer positions in a few clubs, ideally treasurer. The lack of achievements is my main problem.
So why not focus on tennis, key club and volunteering and raise your level of engagement? It’s not about winning awards or getting elected to some ‘officer’ position. It’s about doing something that reflects exceptional commitment, creativity, sensitivity, passion, or any of a number of other valuable qualities (as opposed to just showing up and doing what’s expected - the bare minimum.)
For example, if you enjoy your volunteering, find out what else you can do that would be of value to the organization. Maybe they’d like to learn more about who uses their services and how often or in what ways. Maybe they’d like to know how happy their clients are with the services. Maybe they need some analysis of the data they have associated with the use of their services and a little research might help them focus some of their programs better. Maybe they are thinking of adding programs and could use some research on what other communities do in that area or who else is providing the services they are thinking of offering.
My point is that if you are smart, show some initiative, and really care about the organizations you are involved with, you can find other ways of engaging with that that would strengthen them, improve their services or operations AND teach you something important - which schools like to see. Who knows, you may find your future career…