I am a high school senior and on all my applications, they always seem to ask for what kind of awards I have. However, I honestly did not know you needed to get awards, so throughout my high school career I have been just working hard in school and doing somewhat basic volunteering. How detrimental would it be to my application that I have basically awards??
My dream schools and reaches are UC Berkeley, UCLA and USC. I feel like my stats are kinda average and my extracurricular are not anything extraordinary., so how much worse is it that I have no awards.
With average states, average extracurricular activities, nothing extraordinary and no awards, you will probably wind up at an average university (ranked 100+) and not one of the top, most competitive universities in the country that extraordinary, award-winning students from around the world are applying to. However, if you do extremely well at that average university, you can wind up at a top university for graduate school (or possibly transfer as an undergrad if you don’t plan to do grad school). Just make the most of where you wind up.
So you don’t wind up in this situation again where you don’t know what is expected until it is too late, in the future work backward from your goal. If you plan on a particular type of graduate school, look at their admissions requirements now to get an idea of what you need to do during your four years of college to be a competitive applicant. For example, students planning to get a PhD in science need to have done research while getting their bachelor’s degree, and possibly even published that research in a peer-reviewed journal or presented at science conferences. No one sits down and tells them this necessarily – it is something they find out by thinking ahead and gathering information, and those students who don’t find this out often do not get into their desired programs. The same principles apply with job hunting. Before you start college, consider what jobs you are interested in and go look at job advertisements online to see what they are looking for in applicants, especially those just graduating. For example, chances are they will expect to see that you completed related internships in college, and depending on the job, they might expect to see a link to a digital portfolio online (samples of writing, art, programming, etc.). They may also expect to see certain majors, or be open to a wide range of majors (many quantitative jobs accept unexpected majors – e.g., engineering majors may be recruited for finance jobs or programming jobs, depending on what internships they have had and computing skills they have developed). They may expect you to have mastered certain software or pursued specific certifications. Typically just getting your degree will not be enough, and any time you can show awards or leadership positions or other distinctions, those can set you apart from the competition. Even businesses do this to compete with each other. Would you rather dine at a 5-star restaurant with an award-winning chef and great reviews, or an ordinary fast food restaurant that is like countless others?
Applying to college may be the first time you have considered that you are in competition with others, but you will be competing for the rest of your life. Start thinking long-term about how you will distinguish yourself to open doors and create the career and life you want.
are you sure you have NO awards? Does your school ever have like student of the week or anything like that? Any character accolades throughout your four years? Any award in a club? Any leadership recognition? Any sport awards? If truly, there is nothing, I’d like honor roll or something as an award. NHS as an award if that applies. Any church awards? Any award for service?
@rofikicafe I mean the only award I have is the AP Scholar award but it is so common I might as well not have it.
@mommyrocks You’re right thank you for the insight.
It’s fine to note the AP Scholar awards, honor roll?? - dig deep as most do!
@my2caligirls Okok, thank you! I don’t why but I am just so terribly paranoid!
AP Scholar and Honor Roll or High Honor Roll or however your school categorizes that all counts. Nathional Honor Society, etc.
if you are a CA resident your GC should be familiar with the profile of kids that have been accepted by these schools and can let you know how you compare