My sports:
1 year football
3(plan on 4) track and field
Might do cross country
Clubs:
Stem club(Vice President)
German club(treasurer)
Key club
Honors:
Made high honors every semester
German NHS
NHS
Volunteer work:
Around 300 hours
Jobs:
I had 2 jobs each a year long
Your ECs are fine; for they appear to be meaningful activities in the fields of athletics, academics and community service, and that you have managed your time well with job obligations while maintaining good grades. The AOs generally do not value highly the number of ECs listed by an applicant or by the prestige factors of the ECs as perceived by others; instead they care if these ECs are meaningful and that you have demonstrated that you have learned from your ECs. A sure way to distinguish yourself from other applicants with similarly illustrious credentials is through your essays. Use those precious space of 650 words in the common app or the coalition app, to spotlight your expanded and positive outlook in life, your ability to think clearly, to connect with others, while conveying a sense of modesty.
My son applied successfully to Princeton and other schools in the 2018-2019 cycle. His ECs did not involve any big names; he tutored his fellow students in Russian and math at middle school level, coached badminton at local community camps, and sorted through mud samples and washed glassware for one summer in a soil science lab. His writing skills were paramount in his success, perhaps second to his test scores and GPA.
You need to construct a theme in all your writings. For example, if you would like to talk more about your ECs in your essay, you could demonstrate how discussing a specific article in der Spiegel with other students at the German Club, has altered your view, not only on German culture, but on Europe and beyond, and how this transformation has inspired you to pursue your dream of becoming the Secretary General at the United Nations.
Or choose a theme on resilience. You could illustrate your resilience by drawing from your experience in activities, even as disparate as STEM courses and football; recall the similarity between finally mastering the skill of punting, after months of failures, and taking weeks to understand, eventually, the principles of cloning. Or perhaps watching those you volunteered to help had inspire you to overcome difficulties in balancing school work and jobs.
Practical tips:
-In answering the short questions, do not supply one-word answers. Use every word space to show your characters. For example, Princeton asks for one’s favorite website, don’t just give the link, but do tell how it inspires you or how it helps you.
-Don’t waste the precious writing space to re-list your GPA, ECs or test scores, for they are already in other parts of your application.
-I know that Princeton also requires the submission of a graded paper, while it is optional at Brown.
The state schools probably rely more on GPAs and test scores to help gauge much larger pools of applicants efficiently; it still pays to write the essay well. My son also applied to the University of Maryland, College Park and was selected as a Banneker-Key merit scholarship semi-finalist; at the interview he was told by a professor that “it is very rare to see such a well-written essay”. He was later offered a full scholarship that would cover the costs of tuition and room-and-board for 4 years.
I commend you for thinking and planning ahead, as evident by the timing of this question. You will go far.
They look fine for most purposes.
The question is what you do with them? What have you learned from sports? Have you done anything with German club? Does it relate to a possible interest in a particular major? What does STEM club do? Why are you in it? What sort of volunteer work do you do? Have you shown any leadership there, or are you just counting hours? Are the jobs related to your interests? What did you learn from them?
A list is just a list.
I think they look fine too! For extracurriculars, I believe it’s more important to focus on the things your genuinely passionate about rather than doing things for colleges. As long as you’re very passionate about the extracurriculars you’re currently involved in and you get that across in your applications, I think you’ll do great. A lot of the time extracurriculars are important to write about and talk about how they’ve impacted you – otherwise, it’s simply more words on a page.
They look fine. I would see an interest in you studying German or something. Is that something you want to do? I would say if you could, do more STEM or expand on it in your essays. I see a slight interest in it just because you are vice president in the club.
For most schools they are good. It would be beneficial to present them with a common theme on your application.
My overall main goal would be to become a doctor and I feel that the mass amount of science courses that I’m taking will help and their grades but also that STEM maybe will help bc that was the closet club to anything science like offered and yes I like German but that’s not really a subject I would like to study after high school I just thought it would look good but I’ll take into consideration what everyone has said thank u all so much if their is anything else that anyone has make sure to leave a comment on it