Do you need to be a president or VP of some sort of organization (clubs, self-initiated organization, student council) in order to get into a T10 school?
I have seen many acceptance videos where the applicant typically has at least one of president or VP positions, and people from my school usually have an absurd amount of these positions.
It’s just that most of these positions I speak of are absolutely meaningless in the sense that they don’t actually do any work under the position. I excel in other things like the arts and academics at the national level, I am wondering how I would fare with these people just because they happen to have an (empty) position called president/vp.
Not at all. My D20 will be attending Duke in the fall and she wasn’t a president or VP of any club. Admissions to top colleges is holistic so they want to see what you are doing outside the classroom, what will you be bringing to the college to make it a better place, do you have a special skill or talent, what are your passions and have you shown a commitment to them.
Here’s a list of my D20 fairly routine extracurriculars as an example:
- member of Academic Decathlon
- varsity athlete
- some social action advocacy in Washington D.C.
- member of student government (but not president or VP)
- member of a club or two, no leadership positions
- limited volunteer hours
- worked part-time.
- no state or national awards.
As you can see she didn’t have any amazing leadership positions but was also a straight A student w/ a 34 ACT and is co-valedictorian. I think her essays and LORs were very good.
The bottom line is there is no one formula that gets you an acceptance to top colleges.
Hi socaldad2002!
Thank you for sharing your daughter’s personal experience with college admissions.
I was a bit scared that ad coms just skim over one’s application and only look for things that “sound” impressive just by the name of the position without looking further.
Congratulations to your daughter going to duke!
presidents of clubs are a dime a dozen- I am sure colleges know that kids will start clubs just to be president. And I am sure colleges will be much more impressed by national level arts talent. what they really want to see is that whatever your interests are, you are passionate about them and pursue them.