How are my ECs? Should I get more involved?

EllaSci4
Thu, 28 Aug 2014 17:07:06 +0000

Hi everyone!

I’m kind of getting nervous about my oncoming sophomore year, specifically regarding extracurriculars. I’m not taking a ton, but I put a lot of dedication into each one. All I’m wondering is–will it be enough? Will colleges see that I am getting involved even if I’m not in twenty different clubs?

As a freshman, I was in NEHS (but decided to stop after 1st semester), Science Olympiad (second at state as a team, a bunch of individual medals), Leo Club, ATA Taekwondo (3x state champ), and participated in solo and ensemble (is that an extracurricular?? I have no idea…) which I got two firsts. I did a few hours of legitimate volunteering (like Feed My Starving Children, that sort of thing), but the majority was helping out at taekwondo.

As a sophomore, I will be in Science Olympiad, Leo Club (treasurer), ATA Taekwondo where I will hopefully be state champ again and become a certified instructor by the end of the year–if I do, I can switch from being a volunteer to actually holding a job as an assistant instructor at my school–, and hopefully the founder/president of FMSA (Future Medical Students of America), I might do some writing for our school newspaper, and I’ll probably be a part of Chamber Orchestra as well as do solo and ensemble again.

Here’s my question: I feel like I’m doing enough, but do colleges see it that way? My volunteer hours aren’t that great…I do some work with taekwondo which has added up to over 100 hours of service, but I kind of doubt that colleges are going to see those as “community service”. I made some weak attempts at helping out for world diabetes day and will be doing a few more things since I’m treasurer of Leo Club, but I don’t think it’s enough. I’m also wondering if I have enough extracurriculars. A lot of the posts that I see have eight or so extracurriculars and I feel like I’m barely getting by with 3-5. So, should I add Chinese club, debate team, and math team to my list as well (or one or two of them?) and do you think I should make a point of volunteering regularly during the school year? I was going to just volunteer at a hospital next summer and hope that covered it, but now I’m not so sure…I like volunteering a lot, but I don’t have a lot of time because of taekwondo for about 3-4 hours every day. Also, I read somewhere that it’s a good idea to be one of the only students on your school board. Is that a good idea? What do you think?

Wow, sorry about all the rambling. I really want to make sure I have a good sophomore year because I had an amazing freshman year and I want to “match it”, if you will. Please tell me your thoughts and be honest because I need all the help I can get! Thanks! :)