<p>Would it look good on a college app if this summer a friend and I organized a car wash event and all the money made would benefit cancer</p>
<p>It wouldn’t look bad, of course, but it wouldn’t look unusually good, either. A car wash is a one-time event, and most anybody could do it. </p>
<p>Do you know which colleges you’re trying to impress? At many colleges and universities, extracurricular activities don’t really matter that much anyway.</p>
<p>Don’t bother. It won’t make any difference at all. Spend your time doing something you care more about. And if you really care about curing cancer, there are lots of organizations that would value your help.</p>
<p>Read this satire and learn, grasshopper.</p>
<p>[Soup-Kitchen</a> Volunteers Hate College-Application-Padding Brat | The Onion - America’s Finest News Source](<a href=“http://www.theonion.com/articles/soupkitchen-volunteers-hate-collegeapplicationpadd,1422/]Soup-Kitchen”>Soup-Kitchen Volunteers Hate College-Application-Padding Brat)</p>
<p>@Sikorsky “At many colleges and universities, extracurricular activities don’t really matter that much anyway.”</p>
<p>I disagree. Demonstrated passion and leadership in your ECs DO matter. Most of my D’s acceptance letters contained specific details on her EC work and were cited as THE major factor for standing out amongst the other applications from her region. And yes, before you ask, she has all the statistical “bell and whistles,” that most candidates have that apply to top schools. So while she had the academic chops, so to did most of the application peers. This is precisely why her ECs helped her stand out.</p>
<p>@KyleGC
Not to belittle your intentions in regards to donating money to a cancer fund, but doing so to make you look good on your college apps? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not naive enough to think that most of us do volunteer work for completely selfless reasons but be careful, adcomms can see thru “half-hearted,” attempts at charity and volunteer work. Find a cause that you’re really passionate about and get legitimately involved. If you’re truly dedicated, those around you will know and then you can ask them to recommend you to your colleges for your good work.</p>
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<p>DowneasterDad, of course it’s your prerogative to disagree, but here’s why I still think I’m right when I say, “At many colleges and universities, extracurricular activities don’t really matter that much anyway.” There are over 2700 four-year colleges in the U.S., and another 1700+ two-year colleges. Most of them aren’t very selective at all. At not-very-selective colleges, being academically qualified is pretty much the only hurdle an applicant needs to clear. These colleges will admit a lot of applicants, but they have pretty low yields, so they need to admit a lot of students in order to fill their entering classes. At more selective colleges, there are more academically qualified applicants that the class can hold, so these colleges need a way to choose from among the academically qualified. One index they use to make those distinctions is extracurricular activities.</p>
<p>I infer from what you’ve written, Dad, that your daughter was applying to pretty selective institutions. If so, that’s why her extracurricular accomplishments were important in her college applications. I’ll also concede that the overwhelming majority of discussion in College Confidential is about selective colleges and universities. But I don’t think you can generalize from either your daughter’s experience or the subset of college applicants (and their parents) who dominate the College Confidential forums. It’s really at only a couple hundred selective places, out of over 4000 colleges and universities, that extracurricular activities matter much at all in college admission.</p>
<p>And this is why I asked Kyle what colleges and universities he’s thinking about attending. If he wants to go to Northwestern, he’ll need some fairly spiffy extracurricular accomplishments. If he wants to go to Northwest Oklahoma State, maybe not so much.</p>
<p>@Sikorsky</p>
<p>You’re absolutely correct. Shame on me for drawing inference on OP’s assumption that he needed to “impress,” the school’s he was looking at with charity work. You’re right, until we know what schools he is considering, there may not be a need for any EC effort.</p>
<p>On the periphery of the thread’s spirit was my concern that if you’re going to do volunteer/charity work, better to do research and find one you can actually care about.</p>
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<p>Of course, I completely agree.</p>
<p>Among the College Confidential Urban Legends I’d really like to quash are “Everybody needs killer extracurricular activities,” “Colleges love a ton of community-service hours,” and “It makes a lot of sense to start one more stupid ‘Let’s Rank the Ivy League’ thread.”</p>
<p>@Sikorsky
To be fair, EC only truely matters to 30 something odd schools in the nation. You could easily “stat” yourself into most of the other schools in the top 50 with a score that is 75+++ percentile.</p>