reesebarber

I think that by being a part of a new school(I'm in the first graduating class) I could have hindered my chances of being accepted in colleges. There are none of the standard groups and activities. We do have a basketball, football, baseball, etc., however I'm not very sports-minded. There is NO student government, honors society, or any other clubs that you would normally use to boost you on college applications. My question is Do you think that colleges will recognize/consider that the school does not have these activities when they see my application?

glassesarechic

They'll know that you weren't offered many opportunities, but they will still expect to see, I'd imagine, some form of community involvement in its place.

reesebarber

I mean, I try to stay involved with almost everything going on with my school, but very few of those things go towards leadership qualities and stuff. Also, one thing I've tried to do is found a National HOnors Society at my high school, though it never completely went through. Could I still put that down as an activity? Now when I say I tried to found it, I got all the way to the point where the Honors Society recognized my school and ave us everything we need to start a chapter(even a plaque), but the teachers never really got on it.

Hatoyama

Agreed. If you're going for the top 10, you will need to have a healthy string of ECs. It doesn't really matter if these are in- or out-of-school —*most people have a mix of both — but since your school doesn't have these opportunities, your best bet is to make up for it with plenty of out-of-school ECs. Colleges — especially the top 10 — need to see two things: that you can do the work, and that you will make their college better in some way. Show them the former by getting good SAT scores and grades; show the latter by writing good essays and having lots of ECs (and there are many other ways do do this — anything that falls in the region of "being a standout applicant").