What are some examples of good ec’s? Are regional/state/national ranks that important? or can things like…positions in clubs, etc be good enough? i’m scared i might not have enough ec’s … 
Good ECs DO include prestigious positions in contests etc. especially national places.
For example, applying and winning the [Business</a> Contest NOVA CHALLENGE](<a href=“http://www.novachallenge.org%5DBusiness”>http://www.novachallenge.org) or winning another similar contest (there are a lot out there) will be sure to impress college adcoms.
For example, the winners up there on the web site: Delos Chang, Igor Akimenko, Muaz Siddiqui will probably get into some very good colleges because they placed 1st in National NOVA Competition.
But, there are a LOT of contests you can do. but leaderships dont hurt. But since there are so many competitions, you should really go out and compete in some!
Why? Because only you have won it and you have competed against many other applicants for the title!
imo ECs are all about showing what’s important to you, what you’re passionate about. and quality is much more important than quantity (that’s more than just an opinion). i didn’t have a laundry list of ECs but what i did have showed a clear focus and dedication to a specific area. and that wasn’t something i planned, it just happened that way because they are in fact the kinds of things i care about. BUT i would emphasize that you should just focus on what you care about rather than what will look good to the adcoms. because if you just do ECs that have value to you then it’ll show when you look at them as a whole and the adcoms will see what matters to you and get a better sense of who you are as a person.
quality will always trump quantity
^xiaohyolee: i’ve swam competitively, yr-round since i was 8 and that was by far the biggest thing in my ECs. being a cpt might help a little, but in all reality quantifiable accomplishments will be much more relevant because you could be a cpt on a powerhouse HS team or at a little school with a small team that isn’t nearly as competitive and the adcoms can’t really tell. but if you can say you qualified for HS state or US swimming junior nationals or were all-state or hs all-american, those things carry weight.
Impressive ECs were my plan to get into a top school, but I went too far and had it backfire on me with rejections to almost all of my schools.
Like many CCers, I’m one of those people that pushes hard, runs into setbacks, gets fatigued, and only pushes harder. I’ve inherited an incredible work ethic from my ancestors, and often surprise myself with how much I want to work.
As a result, I have become:
- One of my state’s top leaders and speakers, with the honor of being elected the President of my state’s largest student organization (10,400 members, to be exact)
- One of my state’s top swimmers, a finalist in one event and team captain the year our team won 2nd
- One of my state’s top musicians, qualifying for All State, being a part of one of the state’s most outstanding octets, and being THE cellist people ask to perform with for cultural events around my city (i also recorded over 300 hours of community service just from cello)
- One of my state’s most outstanding competitors, qualifying for a national and two international competitions, placing 4th in one
The downside? My academics. Balancing those ECs with APs proved quite the task. Facing tremendous sleep deprivation (like all of you), my GPA hovered at 3.9 UW with a few A-s. I scored in what would have been among the top percentile on a practice PSAT, but a series of unexpected events and unprecedented stress plunged me down to a “so-so” score on the real thing and subsequent SAT, as compared those who would be applying to the same universities as me.
I’m not one of those people looking for comfort or “oh you’re so good i can’t believe you didn’t get in”, but I am trying to give valuable advice from my personal experience. Even if this only helps one person, I’ll be more than happy. I can see how some would consider my EC imbalance a mistake (in relation to getting accepted into a top school), but I have no regrets. I did what I loved, whether it was for college or not, and had an unforgettable high school experience. Sure, I may have been “good enough” to get into a top school, but I simply just wasn’t what many of them were looking for.
Impressive ECs are great, but it’s all about doing the right ones.
So, if you take one and only one thing away from this post, take this: Work SMART before you work HARD.
It depends. The only difference between Jill and Jenny is that Jill is the most boring essay I would ever read. Jenny’s essay may be the second most boring essay.
The O.P. mentioned that the essay is the one area of the application that allows an applicant to show his or her personality and interests is absolutely true. At the very least, it CAN help. Don’t waste your opportunity to set yourself apart by telling someone how much you like the sport you play, the instrument you play, the charity work you were involved with. Don’t tell them how it impacted you deeply as a person. Don’t tell them how it helped your character or leadership development. An admissions officer may be ‘first reader’ for 700+ applications and the second reader for the same number of applications. He or she sees these type of essays all the do-da day. And each day his or her spirit just dies a little bit more from the effort of reading yet another one.
A college admissions officer told us about an essay that stood out. The Dairy Queen franchises had a free slurpee day. So the kid pulled together a group of friends and they took off on bicycles having mapped out a route to take them to the most Dairy Queens in that day. I think they hit 15 Dairy Queens.
What did the college admissions officer learn other than the kid likes slurpees?
a. The kid has friends
b. He was able to organize a group and lead a rather worthless yet fun activity to conclusion.
c. It’s impossible to take part in such a worthless event for any of those participants not to remember it for the rest of their lives. How would such a student impact those around him on campus?
d. Rather than guessing what interests admissions, the student told them about what interested him.
End result is a kid comes across as refreshingly interesting and not another drone spitting back an essay his equally boring parents encouraged him to write.
So do you need sports as an extra-curricular? Because I am the most un-athletic person ever. How many hours in total is recommended? 500+?
highly agree with gapin’it. the key to ECs are to demonstrate passion and commitment. going through the motions won’t cut it anymore. you have a bunch of ways in your college app to “weave a story” through your laundry list of ECs, achievements, what you did during summers etc. Being able to tie it all together is key…
Hey Guys,
I know it is a rough period for you with the university acceptances. My cousin was accepted to Stanford which is really cool so it can also be an exciting time. She was very proud cuz, hey. All the work paid off!
So is it hard to apply to universities? I mean, the stress of all your schoolwork in addition to uni applicatione essays? I mean how do you manage to write such essays?
Also should I consider a Food Drive at my school
would that look good when I apply to university?
I like helpin others speciifcally the less fortunate.. So does anyone have any ideas as to how I can help less fortunate whilst upping my application?
My school already has a compulsory Community And Service so.. I need somethin unique!
thanks so much for all your help a lot of yuo are real inspirations to me! espeically those of you who manage to apply to several universities so many essays to write!!
thanks you
i agree…i feel like a lot of the time the pressure is on to be that ideal “well rounded” person, which in reality ends up giving you pretty shallow experiences that look broad on paper. but focusing on one activity is a plus 
Do we need to have awards to show our passion in an EC?
I love drawing and have many pieces lying around my home. But I really have no commendations for my interest. Its just something I do naturally.
is it okay if you have two things you are passionate about?
for me it’s journalism and art
do i have to pick one and emphasize it?
because i don’t want to forgo either, but i don’t want to seem undedicated
How should I do my resume, and how long should it be? If I add a resume, do I need to submit the Common App by snail mail, or can I attach files to the Common App?
Thanks ^^.
Does summer camp count as EC
summer camp can be a plus
i’ve got a friend who just got accepted to princeton, she had gone to one of the summer camps(which i suppose was held by Stanford), and if you know just what you want and learn something there, it can also look significant on the app.
thank you! now i know what to write for an essay.
i wanna get something through to me n i need some help for that…does only social work and research count as an ec? can’t it be something yu r passionate for like ‘music’?
The bulk of my EC’s center around music. I’ve participated in every band, orchestra, jazz band (I even learned a new instrument for this) available to me. I put literally hundreds of hours into music, and not just piano, either. Music wasn’t available to me when I was younger, so I worked extra hard to get good at it.
The thing with music is I think you’d have to be recognized, or at least participate in the community with your music. That’s what I do, and it’s tons better than at school.
Okay, so I have a question. Please help me!!! I came from a rural area where no one really participated in research and stuff like that. I had never even KNOWN about it until I moved to a new place in January. Now I got to a math and science center, and a research project is required for freshman, sophomores, and juniors. I’m going to be a senior, so obviously I was exempt from this. But I really really want to research. Or at least help out at a lab. SOMETHING. Not just to look good, but b/c it’s interesting too. Of course, I do want to pad my app. but at the same time I want to got into medicine and it really fascinates me.
The problem is, since no one I know from my old school has ever heard of such a thing let alone done it, I have no idea how to approach it!! How does one go about and find such opportunities. The place I live in now isn’t exactly a metropolis or anything. And the hospitals imo are second-rate. There are however, some big pharmaceutical companies in the area, but I don’t know if they allow 16 year olds. HELP!!
2nd thing: Since I moved in the middle of Junior year, I haven’t had time to sort out extracurriculars and summer plans. I’ve wanted to do something during the summer before senior year, but I don’t know what. I’m volunteering a lot through an organization, and trying to get some hospital hours again. But I feel like I should do something bigger. I feel like I procrastinated, but at the same time I’m totally new to the area.
Where could I emphasize that I worked in a government company during the summer, was in handball national team but in 10th grade and then I got injured so I quit playing handball and that I attended a French language school in Paris?
Is volunteer work an EC? I hope so, because volunteer work takes up a TON of my time and is my passion more than any school club or whatever.
^ Volunteer work is definitely an EC.