WindCloudUltra

These chances threads are often by nervous, scared, uninformed, brash and yet still very charming high schoolers (for the most part)....

The responses are by...college alum and current students?...equally uninformed high school peers?...random people on the internet?....well...who the heck knows?

Anyway, a response that I've seen many times is, "Your ECs are weak." This line seems to be used by both posters who are trying just to be funny/mean and those posters who are seriously trying to help. Hell, I've even used that line myself!

I've seen someone with 2 varsity sports for 3-4 years AND a demanding pt job AND 5 other things on their list get this response....(Not from me by the way; I've only used the line in worse case senarios.)

So my question for everyone is: What is a good list of ECs?

ttlyswt

Lets see... curing cancer, writing a best selling book, ending world hunger, etc, etc... lol.

Northstarmom

Here are some examples of outstanding ECs:

RSI
TASP
State or nationally- ranked athlete
Professional musician who plays solo concerts at places like Carnegie Hall
National president of a student organization
Member of the local school board (such as being the only student on the school board)
The top individual scorer in the nation in an activity like Junior Classical League or Mu Alpha Theta
Research has been published in a professional journal

Has gotten paid for articles written for major publications such as national magazines or major newspapers (This doesn't include columns unless one was the winner of teen columnist scholarship that is awarded by something like Newsweek or Time)

Has created and organized a major service project such as getting a Habitat house built ,raising at least $10,000 or starting a nonprofit that clearly was started by the student, not their parents
Professional actor who has appeared in movies, big city theater or TV
Has done an out of state paid internship with a corporation
Spent a semester or year abroad in a select program like Rotary's program (The travel abroad programs that are based on ability to pay do not count as "excellent" ECs."

Created and runs their own business that makes thousands of dollars a year. (N.B. The business can't be really run by or created by their parents or other adults)

Excellent ECs (e.g. ECs that are of the caliber that many accepted students to HPY have) include having 2 of the following, preferably from very different
fields:

Eagle Scout or comparable Girl Scout
SGA president
Varsity team captain
Regional or national ranking in an activity like Mu Alpha Theta
First place citywide award for something like leadership, service, public speaking, arts
President of a major citywide or regional organization (such as being president of a regional religious youth organization)
Spent the summer working abroad or doing community service abroad in a program that the student found themselves and funded themselves or was paid for participating in

Works a job doing work that normally an adult would do. This could range from being the night manager at a fast food place to designing web pages for neighborhood organizations.

Created any type of local community service program that had impact such as getting one's school or church involved in serving monthly meals to the homeless; starting a once a week tutoring program for low income kids; raising a couple of hundred dollars to give to a charity....


Anyway, those are just some examples.

Keep in mind that most colleges accept the majority of students who apply whether or not those students have any ECs. Most colleges make admission decisions overwhelmingly on grades, scores and possibly class rank. This also is true of even top flagship universities when it comes to in-state applicants.

It's only the very top universities --places like HPYS -- that heavily weigh ECs when they are making admission decisions. That's because such universities have an overabundance of applicants with stellar stats.

Calcruzer

What an absolutely phenomenally well-thought out and researched post.

I wish there were a ton more posts like this one on CC;--thanks Northstarmom.

P.S. I'll be referring people to this post often when they ask about what ECs the Ivies consider important.

madeinusa817

i'm sorry, i know there ARE people with these stats, but there can't be enough of them to fill all of the classes at all of those top schools, so I have to think that these are recommendations, not requirements. The bottom line is, this is what I've heard from every info session and every counselor, that colleges want to see commitment and they want to see passion, and they'd probably prefer an academic or service club to the Ping Pong Club. But colleges don't expect EVERY student to have accomplished all this by the age of 17. They want smart, energetic, curious people, not necessarily ACCOMPLISHED people. I've seen lots of people get into Ivies with nothing more than the standard one varsity sport, a club presidency, maybe a spot on the student council. Let's not exaggerate.

dittogal88

in general, for schools like HYPSM, your extracurriculars are only as good as your scores...

Northstarmom

Just to clarify: The lists are not absolute requirements for admission to top schools. There are students who get into places like Ivies without those things. After all, the Ivies and similar schools approach admissions in a way to create well rounded, diverse classes in all meanings of the words "well rounded" and "diverse."

Consequently, more will be expected of a student who is from a part of the country like the urban Northeast than a student who is from an underrepresented part of the country. Also, more would be expected of a student from an excellent school, affluent family in an urban area with lots of opportunities than would be expected of a low income student in an isolated, unsophisticated rural village.

The lists, however, should be helpful to people who are wondering how their own ECs stack up or who are wondering what they might need to do to be as competitive as possible.

It sometimes amazes me that students will take the SATs over and over and over again to raise already excellent scores to perfect ones, but the same students don't take the time to pursue their extracurriculars with creativity and leadership. For top colleges, it probably is not going to make a heckuva lot of difference if one raises one's SAT v score from a 750 to an 800, but it could make a lot of difference to admission if one is president of a national organization or spearheaded a major local fundraiser for charity.

Just getting a club office, taking an instrument for years, or going on a trip doesn't really count for that much when it comes to top college admissions.
Going above and beyond what most people do -- and accomplishing these things through your own creativity and hard work (not through your parents' buying opportunities for you) is what helps ECs stand out to admission officers at top colleges.

Sephiroth226

I beg to differ about what is a good EC. A good EC is one that you do not mind participating in and you put considerable effort into. Regardless of how prestigious an EC is, if you hate it you don't do it. I never participated in an EC for more than a semester if I disliked it. By doing so, I was able to tie it in to my essays how I explore my passions with my EC's, which I bet helped a lot.

That being said, a good list of EC's is one where you dedicate yourself wholly for a reasonable amount of total time--quality over quantity.

Northstarmom

I agree that if you hate an EC, don't do it.

Any EC can become an outstanding one if one devotes oneself to it passionately and with creativity, hard work and leadership. Most people, however, don't have that kind of passion, creativity or interest in their ECs or aren't willing to work that hard to do something with real impact.

Students who did the kind of ECs that I listed are students who were doing what they loved, and who also had a lot of talent, and energy and were willing to work hard in their ECs, which probably were their idea of fun even if the ECs seem like work to other people. If they made such EC accomplishments while also having high grades and scores, they also had organizational skills that are far above average, and they also were very bright.

madeinusa817

i agree with you there northstarmom, i think the earlier post of all the listings was misleading by providing a seemingly comprehensive list of acceptable ECs. the whole points of ECs is to show that you have interests outside of the class and you actually pursue them. i think the distinction between being president of a school club and being president of a national club is actually pretty small. sure, a handful of kids can do the latter, but doing the former shows something too if you really put effort into it.

how exactly does one make the move to becoming president of a national club? it doesn't strike me as the kind of thing you can just up and do. i mean, i was president of the school's young democrats as a freshman, and nobody ever alerted me to the fact that I could any more than put all my time into the club.

Arwen1

Do top colleges really view being a student rep. on the local school board similar to getting research published or TASP? I never knew that being a student rep. was such a powerful EC.

WindCloudUltra

madeinusa817...
If you don't mind, I'll give an example of a good EC. Northstarmom, would you mind to comment on it?

Before I give the recount of it, I'd like to point out that this was one of my EC's during high school. (Albeit an important one that was important to me though certainly not the only one) I am also already in college, so I'm not posting this to get my "chances" nor am I posting this for any other reason than giving an example of what I think is a good EC. (This is stated without any form of arrogance.)

During my high school years, because of the cutting of arts funds, the annual spring musical's budget was cut down to only $1,000-$2,000. For those who don't know, it is quite difficult to put on any kind of show of any quality with that amount of money. For small rural schools, such a budget for the annual musical may mean a lot; however, for my school (which is a large urban high school with a rich tradition of putting on high quality productions), the cut was hit the production badly. Our district, like many large urban schools, did not have very strong parent involvement. Therefore, funding the money from "rich parents" was out of the question.

I was involved with the Drama department starting from my freshman year; when we were hit with this news in my sophomore year, it was quite devastating for many people in the club. At first, we thought the production was not going to go on; however, the two drama directors decided (out of the goodness of their heart) to work with the students without pay. We had some vo-tech teachers (home-ec, sewing and wood shop) who were willing to make the costumes and sets with their students- again with limited resources. The biggest problem came when be couldn't hire the pit orchestra musicians. Normally, the pit was made up of part students and part hired-professional musicians and was conducted/directed by the band director. My sophomore year, a new, younger band director came and was unwilling to do the production without pay. (Reasonable and understandable)

Well, I did something that was quite unprecedented: I asked the directors if I could recruit musicians for the pit and rehearse them as well. It would consist of entirely student musicians (except for the vocal director on keyboards) and I ended up conducting the production in my SOPHOMORE year. With more experience, I did the same thing in my junior year. Because I had some matters during my senior year that took up a lot of my time, I abdicated from the position, and that year, the vocal director conducted from the piano. The pit however, was still comprised of student. I continued to do some backstage work for the production that took less time so I was able to dedicate more time to what I needed to do that year.

My point is, a fulfilling and "decent" activity need not be outside of your own high school. I was extremely glad for the rare opportunity to do what I did, I learned a lot from it and I thoroughly enjoyed the 3 sleepless months in those two years.

When I took volunteered, it was completely because I wanted to learn how to conduct. I wanted to imrpove musically and I thought it would be fun. It never occured to me it would be one of the strong parts of my college application, which was quite a happy accident.

Strykur

Well, I had 4 years of varsity swimming, plus all year swim with private clubs. Plus water polo during the summer, along with swimming, so my high school summers were basically 5-7 hours in the pool every weekday. Plus I fit in 240+ community service hours on the weekends every year with my high school mission group with my church. I had no academic ECs, just sports outside the classroom. I didn't think this was too much (in a list form this is only a few items), it's just how much time you put into the EC that matters I guess. 5:00 AM workouts for swim gave me some credit, I guess...

Tetragrammaton

Would it be out of place or unwelcome to ask about the value of a specific EC of mine?

AdamantineX

a good EC, i think, is the one that you are passionate about and the one that you enjoy the most.