I’d like to clarify that not all of these are done just for college apps or are exaggerated, but many of them are. It’s disheartening to see people follow the same structure and get into top colleges, when all I’ve done is pursue my passions, but not to the extent of creating international organizations or starting a club. Like, a bunch of my classmates (juniors) started clubs this year and I know for a fact that it’s all for college applications. Anyways, my main question is if admissions officers are still falling for those or if they’ve noticed the pattern and are no longer accepting only students like those.
When my son was a high school student seven years ago, someone from his high school started a nonprofit. My son saw right through it. If HS peers see through this, I have to think admission committees do, too.
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You be you and all will work out fine. ECs are but a small part of an application.
Do what you want. Don’t concern yourself with others.
Seriously. People aren’t dumb. They know fluff from fact.
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Yes. Admissions committees at top-tier institutions are well aware of the game and have been for years. The performative “teen founder” application has long lost its shine; in today’s admissions offices, it’s more likely to raise a red flag than impress anyone.
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Don’t be disheartened. Authenticity is more important. Just be you. Last year, my Daughter applied to and was accepted to a T20 school. She didnt start any clubs or non profit or anything that was “eye catching”.
She just expressed her genuine interests, what she wanted to explore in college, and what she’d like to learn. Don’t compare yourself to others because you dont know their complete story and wont help your own efforts.
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Reading these replies has reassured me immensely. Thank you all!
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My daughter started a film club at her HS. She actually loves film and it was a lot of work for her to start that club.
I don’t think it got her admitted to any schools, but it was a positive on her application…because it IS a positive thing to have an impact on your community.
I will say that during college interviews…she was asked about film (perhaps gauging if she was really passionate about film) and she was able to engage in intelligent discussion. This would be my strongest recommendation–if you claim a passion on your application…you had better be able to back up your claim.
I am far more concerned about students who claim extensive scientific research backgrounds (something you did not mention) because…a high school student does not yet have the knowledge, skills, or credentials to really do research.
My scientist wife laughs at the whole notion of “high school researchers.”
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She did cure cancer though - right ?
Oh sorry, that was another applicant !! 
I swear, it seems there are more kids who started non profits and raised gazillions of dollars than there are non profits.
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No. In fact, she started occassionally drinking soda but she didnt put that on her application.
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I think if you’re truly passionate about whatever it is you’re into, and you try to build a community around it, it’s a net positive. I’m sure there are plenty of kids who spin up clubs for college apps to show their passion for something, but there are many other ways to do that, too. I think admissions is just trying to get a sense of what you love and how motivated you are to be a leader in your community around something that interests you. That said, I do know kids who have pursued their passion projects since elementary or middle school and received national recognition for their work—and they did get into an impressive array of schools.
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Will do!
So I agree with others that this stuff is not likely helping in the way these applicants are hoping it will help.
But I want to gently caution you about something. That doesn’t mean they will then all get rejected by the colleges they are targeting. Some will, but some won’t.
And in fact, I think highly selective college AOs often admit applicants despite this stuff, because they understand the pressures kids can be under, including sometimes from parents. And so while they may not value it, they may also not be inclined to punish the kids for trying, it may just not be a factor at all.
And in the end, this leads me to perhaps the most important point about all this: if you get too caught up in who else is being admitted where, it is going to end up poorly for your peace of mind. Highly selective college admissions are done by imperfect individuals operating within imperfect institutions operating within an imperfect world, and things you don’t like are going to happen. And in fact if you actively look for cases you don’t like, probably you will find a lot of them.
But at the end of the day, none of that is your fault, and you couldn’t do anything about it anyway. You can just take care of your own business. Like, use your HS years the ways you want to use them. Include using those years to develop in the directions you personally value. Then apply to a carefully-chosen list of affordable colleges that at least mostly share your values. Pick your favorite offer, and then continue your personal journey at that college.
That’s all within your power to do, so that’s what you can focus on. The rest of this stuff, eh, I’m not saying you have to be happy about it, but spending too much time worrying about it is not productive and not in your interests.
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Starting a club is very different than starting a non-profit…and especially if it is sustainable after the starting student graduates.
Our kid started a flag team to go with the HS band (mostly because she is a double reed player and there is no marching band music…and she hated carrying the banners). She actually used this experience of the start to fruition of this group for her college essay. And it existed for about ten years after she graduated…maybe until COVID.
I’m guessing it did help her get accepted as there was a hand written note on each of her acceptance letters commenting on her excellent essay…even at a very large public university.
But a non-profit? Nope. Most students cannot do this at all by themselves. They need an over 18 or 21 year old (state dependent) to do this.
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So I don’t know why I didn’t even think of this until now, but my S24 actually had a “started a student organization” story in his applications. It was EXTREMELY light-hearted, but he and some friends did start up a regular activity that became popular with other students and in fact teachers. This was his 10th-slot activity, and actually he wrote about it in response to a specific Carleton prompt (where he was admitted).
This may sound strange, but I truly did not even think of this as a species of “club founding” until just now. But of course it is, even if pitched in the mildest possible way.
I guess my point is a lot of this may end up being about tone. If you do something like this for your own purposes and not college admissions gold stars, then when using it in college admissions, maybe just make sure not to “oversell” the formal aspects of it. But then of course feel free to explain why in fact you sincerely valued doing it.
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In a nutshell, yes.
They want to see that you find interesting things to do with your time. That you have ways to engage with the community. That you can figure out how to get things done. That you can learn from those things.
It’s up to you to make it interesting to them. So if you’re an athlete who refs youth games on the side, that’s fine. You get a different perspective. You learn the importance and difficulty of explaining the rules to the kids. You learn how to deal with badly behaving parents.
If you decide to start a board game night for classmates, that’s fine. You’re off your phone, you think about the clarity of rules. You work out the logistics.
If you decide to paint a mural on an ugly wall, you learn about dealing with local government, collaborating with others, raising $ for supplies.
And any of these can lead to anything else. None of these will push you to the top of the pile, but any can show who you are, what excites you, and that you pursue your interests.
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Is everyone so sure that colleges (even highly selective ones) can see through this kind of window dressing?
These same colleges seem perfectly willing to believe top students who undertake novel research and publish in peer-reviewed journals.
And if one were convinced that an applicant had falsified something as significant as a non-profit or research during admissions, then why not do something about it?
Applicants (and their consultants) continue to do this because it doesn’t hurt their chances and may even help them at the margins. It shouldn’t, but I suspect that it does far more often than honest parents and applicants would like to believe.
Colleges will say that they don’t have the time or the resources to ferret out this kind of fraud. But if you polled the average student, parent or perhaps even trustee at (or affiliated with) a highly selective college, I’m sure that the majority would prefer to spend more money on admissions integrity than on some other dubious administrative line-items. These people probably think that their college is already doing this kind of vetting; but they’re not.
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I don’t think AO’s are naive enough to believe that during an 8 week summer “research” stint, a HS student actually “discovered” a diagnostic test for Parkinson’s disease which only required a blood draw. The puffery is built in to the activity-- anyone with actual scientific research experience understands that in 8 YEARS you may not achieve the result that HS students claim they got in 8 weeks. And even Nobel prize winners proudly proclaim that they stood on the shoulders of giants.
Why waste resources verifying some of these claims? They aren’t believable, and I don’t believe they are anywhere near as important as the private college counseling industry believes them to be (and have convinced gullible parents that these pay to play activities are worth engaging in). Ditto for some of the crazy claims of these non-profits. If a HS kid had actually eliminated malaria somewhere or “fixed” a disease-ridden water system in Honduras, the kid would be a household name with the claims already verified by the WSJ, NY Times, WaPo, and CNN.
So the AO’s mutter “that’s nice” when they see these activities on an application and then go on to read the rest of the application. It shows you that EC’s are nowhere near as important as HS kids believe them to be for a VERY large chunk of colleges-- and for the few where they ARE important, the puffery is neither here nor there.
The last kid I know whose parents paid big bucks for the “full package” (counseling since 9th grade, the full complement of curated activities including starting her own non-profit AND doing research) ended up at Binghamton. This is not a bad outcome at all. But as millions of NY State residents will happily tell you- you do NOT need to pay a college counselor to orchestrate your life to get into Binghamton. The goal was Barnard-- and sadly-- was not meant to be.
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Most of the “highly selective” colleges are turning down far in excess of who they are accepting.
We don’t know who they are accepting or turning down - but I’m sure lots of those 90%, 95% or 80% - depending on the college - have fluffed a lot, just like the kids who got in. I mean kids think they need awards - so they AP Scholar - which means you got a 3 on x tests. It’s an award of nothing.
Yes, they know these are kids - they play sports, they’re in band, etc. It’s not “normal” to do university research or start a non profit. They can’t be that clueless to it. And I’m sure it’s mainly these sports or band or theater or club kids or i had a part time job - who get in.
They know it’s mainly bs. They have to.
Some may think - that kid has money - and perhaps it gives that message to those who factor that in.
Consultants get a really smart kid and get them in - doesn’t mean that their fluff got them in. But for them, it’s a great selling point.
They sucker the wealthy in many ways - sort of like Luis Vuitton or BMW does. That’s their target. They’re not featuring their client that went to the state school.
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Founding a club or non-profit shows initiative. How a student describes the activities they undertook, the time they spent on it, and the impact they had will determine how app readers perceive the activity. IME it would have to be overstated to become a negative. Most will be neutral to positive in terms of the overall impact to the activities score. I expect many people overestimate the potential impact at top schools of these types of activities.
Some students do undertake novel research and publish in peer-reviewed journals. Just a fact. One can look at ISEF winners for examples. Students with these types of achievements are outliers, but just because someone doesn’t know a student like this doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Examples I have personally read: student developed a surgical instrument that became a key part of a specific procedure (obviously that came with publications), another student created a more efficient path for a surgical robot to take while doing a specific surgery, the manufacturer incorporated said changes into the software (also publications.)
Some colleges do. CalTech recently wrote about their vetting process here: https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/college-admissions-caltech-cheating-fraud-squad-f7627aab?st=puVPsz&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Other schools have similar processes, IMO those tend to be private relatively low acceptance rate schools. Schools that get a hundred thousand apps can’t vet all, but they might spot check. And many schools have a staff person to handle all the calls that come in from parents and students saying so-and-so is lying on their app. The volume of that is high at the school where I work, and most are investigated. That’s but one reason I suggest that students don’t talk with anyone about the details of their apps.
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Wow - kids really do that? I know people ask on here should I.
I wouldn’t think it’s a huge thing - so that’s interesting.
I mean, how does one know what’s in another’s app. Sure, they brag but to their friends. How often does someone get cancelled for this (rejected) and are they told why they are rejected - in this case. Or are they just rejected?
Is there any blowback on the person who reported? Like we don’t want that type of person here, especially if nothing is found?