<p>I don’t have a lot of extracurricular activities or awards in general but I have a decent rank/GPA/SAT scores/etc… and I was wondering if I still had a chance of getting in?</p>
<p>It really depends. If you want to share your stats, we can give you a better idea.</p>
<p>Do you have a chance of getting in with no ECs? Sure, but every little bit helps.</p>
<p>My analogy is to think of your application as a hot fudge sundae. Your GPA and standardized test scores are the ice cream. Essays & recommendations are the hot fudge and nuts. ECs are the whipped cream and cherry. A dessert with the right amount of these ingredients will more easily catch the eye of a consumer than one missing some things. But no amount of fluff can make up for lousy ice cream.</p>
<p>NOTE: Feel free to substitute butterscotch or strawberry sauce. However, anyone adding coconut to a sundae will be automatically rejected without further consideration ;)</p>
<p>My SAT composite score is 2150, M- 660, CR- 690, W- 800. My cumulative GPA is about 4.985/6.00 and I’m ranked 18 out of 449 in my grade which is top 4%…</p>
<p>What were you doing with your time instead of ECs? Did you work a job, or do art on your own, or do community service or take care of a younger sibling or…? you get the idea. The admissions office will want to know how you used your time outside of class and often want to see how committed a student is to their “passion” or obligations. USC seems to look for students who do not spend every waking minute studying and/or watching tv. lol. So as long as you have something meaningful that you’ve been doing with your time–even if it your family or financial situation take you away from after school activities–make sure you write about it.</p>
<p>Also, going off what madbean said, “extracurricular” is a very broad term. Think more about her question: what were you doing? For my first two years of high school (and a few months of my third, but that was different), I spent a lot of time doing things with my grandmother and great-uncle (she was blind and he couldn’t walk, and they just wanted to spend time with their family). I’d go into more detail, but either way, my point is that ECs don’t have to be clubs.</p>