<p>From this morning’s Syracuse Post-Standard comes a story about one Upstate NY school’s attempt to insure that students who claim to be actively participating in ECs actually are. Jamesville-DeWitt is one of the more competitive Syracuse area public high schools, regularly placing graduates in highly selective colleges, including the Ivys. The story:</p>
<p>DeWitt, NY – High school transcript padders beware.</p>
<p>Several popular clubs at Jamesville-DeWitt High School are cracking down on students who join the groups to dress up their transcripts, but rarely attend meetings or participate in activities.</p>
<p>The clubs now require members to earn points by attending meetings and participating in activities. Students who don’t earn enough points will get a letter saying they’re not meeting the club’s expectations.</p>
<p>The idea is to ensure that students are responsible club members who actively participate, student club organizers say.</p>
<p>My school has been doing this for years. And it’s not even a highly competitive school. You just have to earn a certain number of points for each club per semester (determined by club presidents/sponsors) to maintain active standing.</p>
<p>this is dumb. The problem is the people who start up 7 clubs so they can captain them, and then end up just making each club their friend’s hang out spot, maybe with a little bit of genuine activity thrown in.</p>
<p>And every one knows that clubs dont get you into college, so why harass freeloaders - instead the school should divert time and energy to helping the genuine clubs and students accomplish great things, that in turn the genuine students will be able to talk about. </p>
<p>The action against freeloaders is already sufficient - it is done by colleges. admissions committees can be confusing and obnoxious, but they aren’t stupid. If you are smart enough to halfass your clubs/resumes and make the admissions committees think you were passionate and awesome, then you deserve to be admitted because you have a rare skill.</p>
<p>OMG. My kids’ school has had this points requirement for years. I had it at my school, back in the dark ages. I thought it was a common practice. </p>
<p>I always wondered how some kids handled a gazillion ECs. Now I see they’re just joining, not doing. What an eye-opening shame. </p>
<p>No wonder my kid’s profile is shorter than most around here.</p>
<p>I think this would be amazing at my school. It really frustrates me when I see other people show up at the first meeting for a club and leave, just to never show up again. As if that entitles you to put it on your resume. In general, my school is made up apathetic rich kids. A whole lot of people at my school are lazy and don’t go to clubs, most just attend first meetings. My school is also way too lenient with starting clubs: about 40 clubs were started this school year, about 15 have met one time this year, and literally 6 clubs have met in the last 4 months. I think it’s wrong because students need to learn about commitment and dedication to things they take up, it’s important throughout life.</p>
<p>I’m going to repeat sqdwfe13’s question - how does this help? Can’t people put anything they want on a resume? What’s stopping them? They could even put the club down without having joined or paid dues! It’s not like they had any integrity in the first place if this has become an issue.</p>
<p>This is just a crazy idea–what if high schools had their own club databases where only active members who earned points would be on the lists? Then college admissions officers could refer to the databases to check if the person was an active participant of that club, or really held a certain position like president, vp, etc.</p>
<p>I do find this a pain (er the fact that people join and never show again while still taking credit). I think it’s great to have a records/points type program in place. Clubs are NOT meant to simply be fluff to add to your application. They are supposed to be organizations you join if you legitimately are interested in something. And if there isn’t a club that you’re interested in joining, all the better: make one. It’s absolute crap to go ahead and just throw names down.</p>
<p>I don’t know how/if this will stop students from putting down clubs they aren’t active in or going so far as to just make up a club the school doesn’t even have, but I commend the effort at the least. If a more efficient way can be devised, even better. I just think something should be done or worked on.</p>
<p>Most of the larger clubs at my school already do this</p>
<p>I get the intention and I think its a good idea if a club is too large to keep track of members, but having been in several clubs that count points myself, the system was incredibly frustrating. Maybe the officers were just unable to keep track of records properly, but both of the clubs kept messing up my points and not adding in all of them, I got “kicked out” of one of them because I “didn’t earn enough points” even though I got almost twice the minimum required.</p>
<p>For some students, the volunteer work involved with the clubs became entirely about getting the bare minimum number of points and doing the easiest activities to get this points. Not really the point of a volunteer club, but eh…</p>
<p>Well, I hate to say this, but apparently such cheating goes on in the adult ranks as well. I work in a professional field that requires continuing education for recertification. Sometimes the CE is met by attending sessions at various conferences. Naturally, there is a kind of person who’ll try to “game the system” so they can do other activities instead.</p>
<p>The organizers caught on to this. In the old days, you’d have to sign in to each session, then in and out of each session. Some people had others forge their signatures. Oragnizers then went to a system where one’s conference ID badge has a bar code, which is to be scanned by conference workers who appear no sooner than ten minutes before the end of each session. This generally works as long as there are enough operable scanners.</p>
<p>We tried to use points to discourage people from joining Key Club just to pad, but there was no real way we could enforce it or keep them from writing it on apps.</p>
<p>I lead a fairly large club that tried to implement a points system, and it was almost impossible to enforce.
Even service clubs that require hours/money points/etc. can’t really guarantee that kids aren’t cheating their way through, and no club can really instill a sense of commitment in members through a tracking system. There will always be freeloaders, major tools, and resume padders, but there will also always be super-dedicated and passionate people.</p>