<p>Would it be a good idea? Would this be looked down upon in my transfer application?</p>
<p>You should join them either way. If your talking about EC’s and clubs ect. at your college, I don’t know why this would be looked down upon. I must be missing something.</p>
<p>Hmm, I thought it may look like I joining EC’s for the sake of joining them to improve my resume.</p>
<p>If it’s one or two activities you’re genuinely interested in, I don’t see a problem. If you go out and join a bunch of random clubs/activities, they’ll likely suspect resume padding.</p>
<p>on the commonapp, all you do is check of the year that you participated in the group, not which semester…as cbr27 said, joining a bunch of random groups for the sake of making your app look better will likely be looked down upon…quality, not quantity when it comes to ec’s…they want to see real involvement with the groups that you participate in, not just 1 hour a week of being a member</p>
<p>Ah, I see what you mean now. As duffle said, common app asks for years not semesters. I would do it either way. good luck.</p>
<p>If you already have a few activities that are significant and connect to your interests don’t even bother. If the group you intend to join is something that connects to these interests as well, then yeah go ahead because you have already shown your commitment to that field.</p>
<p>I talked to the admissions dean at Penn and she said she doesn’t care for EC’s much, they just want to see that you’re involved ( whether it by a job, a club, or whatever). Your GPA matters the most; ECs are trivial unless they’re highly significant, which in most people’s cases they’re not.</p>
<p>That’s great to hear. I’m an in an investment club and tennis club now. I was looking into joining one more EC.</p>
<p>The problem with me is that I have a lot of interests and I could be mistaken for someone that pads a resume.</p>
<p>BTW, ccTransfer, what school are you applying to at Penn?</p>
<p>I’m applying for admission in 2010; but I’m looking at CAS and LPS. I wanted to apply to SEAS but the dean hinted at the fact that I would have a better shot at CAS because their engineering school wants “Penn caliber” math and I’m coming from a cc. I am also looking at LPS because it is much cheaper, and I have been told that there is no distinction between degrees from CAS and LPS ( but of course I am still investigating to make sure this is actually true and not similar to the situation of Columbia’s CC and CGS)</p>
<p>In regards to the interests thing, be smart about what you put on your resume. Don’t tell them about something that is really banal and won’t make a difference. Even if you do end up listing activities, I am sure you can focus on simply one activity in essays/interviews and show where your true interests are. As long as you GPA is around 3.5+ you really don’t need to join any more clubs ( you can but don’t feel obliged to do so) because that isn’t one of the main criteria for transfer admission.</p>