would these ECs raise a red flag? if so, why?

Applying to College
1

<p>1. Varsity Soccer :
Been varsity soccer for 4 years. 20 hrs / week</p>

<p>2. Debate:
Will have taken it 3 years by senior year. For states, won honorable mention and 5th place sophomore year. States for junior year: 5th place, and honorable mention as well. my friend only took it for 3 years, but she is marking it down for 4 years. i'm going to convince her not to do that, and if she wont, then I'm going to mark it down for four years too. 10 hours a week</p>

<p>3. Drama:Taking it all four years. principal roles. 18 hours a week</p>

<p>4. Track: Will have taken it four years by senior year. Qualified for 100 meter dash for states level, as well as high jump. probably going to be track captain. (if I don't know whether im captain yet, since the season has not started, can i just mark down that i will be captain because its very very likely? like, if i mark it down and track hasn't even started, will adcoms get suspicious?) 10 hours a week.</p>

<p>5. Gay-straight alliance
Taken it 3 years by senior year. 2 hours a week. im the vice president of GSA at our school.</p>

<p>Volunteer work
6.Student Guiding Light- 2 years. Help out emotionally wronged students at the high school. About an hour a week. I stopped doing it my senior year.</p>

<p>7*. Help out at the homeless shelter every weekend.* About 150 hours total so far in high school career. 4 years</p>

<p>8*. Church Youth Group *- Part of a youth group. Help the homeless, etc.</p>

<p>Various other volunteer efforts. 4 years.</p>

<p>Around 250 volunteer hours under belt.</p>

<p>9. Work: Secretary at dental office - 3 years now. 5 hours a week</p>

<p>**10. designer, owner, and operator **of baby-sitting business. </p>

<p>11. Vice president of key club 5 hours / week</p>

<p>would these ECs raise a red flag in any way?</p>

<p>like, are they unbelievable? would adcoms look at me and laugh if they saw these ECs? would they believe me? would they think i was exageratting? Why?</p>

2

<p>Most of it is pretty believable, except overall you have more than 70 hours a week spent on these activities based off your numbers. That seems pretty drastic to me; that means you spend 10 hours in out of school activities every single day of every single week. </p>

<p>There is no one activity that raises a red flag; just the overall number of activities/time spent doesn't add up very well; it might be stretching it more than a little bit. You might want to modify them to say how many hours a week AND # weeks per year (cuz not all activities are year-round). If you are actually stretching the 4 1/8 hours of activities to 5 hours a week, round it down-you do plenty, the adcoms are going to get a little suspicious when you say that you spend 1/2 of your life on extracurricular activities (not including school, food, sleep). </p>

<p>Also, do you honestly spend that much time doing this stuff? Sheesh. What happened to just being lazy and watching the tv? If you do all this stuff and still somehow get time to sleep/eat/hang out with friends, kudos to you. Just make the rest of your application believeable (and truthful).</p>

3

<h1>2 - Two wrongs don't make a right. Just because your friend exaggerates does not mean you should. Don't do it.</h1>

<h1>4 - When does your season start? When are you submitting apps? If the season hasn't started yet, mark down that you anticipate being captain this year. Don't say you are captain if you are not.</h1>

<p>Otherwise, it looks good to me.</p>

<p>edit: ditto to what fa-la-la-lena said!</p>

4

<p>Yeah, the activities themselves don't seem far-fetched, but I really have a hard time believing you spend almost twice as much time on these activities as the average working American spends on the job. With school, sleep, friends, and family, do you really have that much time to actually spend on all of your activities? In my opinion, ~20-30 hours would be FAR more believable than 70.</p>

5

<p>The sheer number of hours that you spend on the extracurriculars will raise a flag and the admissions officers will become suspicious. Try not to exaggerate your hours. Unless some these activities are not year round, then it's fine.</p>

6

<p>also, do things, such as drama, take place during the school day?</p>

7

<p>how passionate do i seem about my ecs?</p>

<p>do these ecs seem really amazing / really good?</p>

<p>do i seem focused?</p>

8

<p>no offense, but does it really matter? you can't change you EC's now or anything. it is what it is.....good luck!</p>

9

<p>There was a quote in a major newspaper a while back about how Cornell U got an applicant that said they took 50 hours of ecs per week and rejected them solely on that, because they thought the applicant was lying. I'll try to find the quote for you. It was the Boston Globe or the NY Times, I believe.</p>

10

<p>How do you spend 5 hr/s a week on Key Club and 2 hrs on GSA? Just wondering....</p>

11

<p>To the OP, why do you need other people to answer those questions for you? If you were truly devoted to those extracurriculars and happily spent time each day on them, then why do you need others to reassure you of your "passion" for your ECs? To me, just the need to ask these questions seems immensely shallow and it almost seems as if your main purpose for these ECs is college apps...</p>

<p>No offense, just stating my thoughts...</p>

12

<p>We can't really tell how believable your hours/week are unless you also tell us your weeks/year. For example, 18 hours/week for drama is believable if it is for a few weeks once or twice a year, but not if you put it down for 40 weeks a year.</p>

13

<p>Well, I can see how its possible.............
soccer is usually a Fall sport, Track is Spring, Drama would be 3 months,
debate would be all day Saturday + 1 school evening, all of the volunteer work is weekend....., the Church Youth Group could be a summer deal, etc.</p>