From an admissions stainpoint, If I’m applying to a top 20 college, would It look better to be in a level leadership position at a national confrence, or to go for a second year as a competitior and win? Thanks.
It would look better to participate in the way that you’d most enjoy it - and to make an impact.
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I think that @tsbna44 is exactly right. Do what is right for you. Whatever you do, do it well.
This is my understanding of the approach recommended on the “applying sideways” blog on the MIT admissions web site, which is worth reading. IMHO this is also a good approach for other very good universities as well. This is what my family has done, and it has worked out for us.
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Just to reinforce the above, this is a tough thing for some kids to wrap their heads around, but generally what looks best to these highly selective colleges is looking like the sort of kid who has the maturity and self-confidence to just do what they find meaningful with energy and enthusiasm, rather than doing things because they think it will look good to colleges. So, somewhat ironically and definitely confusingly, your best bet for looking good to these colleges is to not constantly try to look good to them.
I note holistic review college admissions is sometimes analogized to dating, and this is one of the reasons why. Some people have a hard time understanding why doing everything you think another person wants you to do is not necessarily the best strategy to get them to actually want to be with you. But when you think about it, many people understandably want to be in relationships where the other person is bringing to the relationship something new, something different, something unexpected, something exciting, and so on. So being a self-confident, self-motivated person is often much more attractive than being a person who is just trying to be whatever they think the other person wants them to be.
And colleges are basically forming four-year relationships with their admitted students, and they want the same things. They ideally want self-confident, self-motivated kids who will bring things to their communities that they haven’t seen a million times before.
So that’s who you should try to be, the sort of kid who does stuff for their own purposes. And then let colleges like you for being that sort of kid.
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