Lack of Extracurricular Activities

Applying to College
1

<p>I am currently a junior in high school and an AP student. As of right now, I do not have many extracurricular activities for a resume. This worries me a bit because I know it matters a lot (I do not think it should matter as much as it does). I would like to explain why. I do not just sit around and do nothing. Freshman year, I joined marching band, which then led to further participation in the rest of the music department. Besides home, the band room was my second most-visited building. This continued all the way until now, my second semester of junior year. I quit right at the end of first semester because I was simply losing interest in music and I felt that our program was very unorganized and manipulative with how they treated the kids. I was literally disgusted when I sat down and thought about what was actually going on. Of course I didn’t say that when I quit. </p>

<p>Band consumed my life, so now that it is done with, I have found a lack of participation outside of my studies. I am in a psychology club because I have a outstanding passion for the field of study. With that, I have also decided to self-study AP Psychology and I have already made my deposit to take the AP test in May. This is about it, though.</p>

<p>I have NO community service or volunteer work. My parents both work full-time and I do not have my own car. Since I have received my license in October, I have actively been trying my hardest to get involved a bit more now that I can transport myself. I am looking for a part-time job, I have been accepted as a volunteer of the city, and I am looking for any possible internships for the summer. Unfortunately for me, I cannot seem to find sufficient volunteering opportunities. Everything is not within my available hours, which is not much. I only have a car after 5:30pm on weekdays and all day some weekends. The city’s volunteer opportunities are mostly during the day. I have found some I can do over the summer, but it will not add up to a lot.</p>

<p>I don’t mean to make pity excuses for not having EC’s, but some of us simply do not have the resources to get out there and do a lot. I am being offered a vice president position of the psychology club and have a very good shot of receiving an ASB appointed officer position at my school, but that’s about it. It is NOT a lot compared to many applicants. </p>

<p>Basically, I would like to know how much it will affect me. I would really like answers from people who were maybe in the same position I am in or may have some sort of experience with it. I don’t really want to hear about how my chances are low from a student who joined every single club their school offers. Thank you for reading.</p>

2

<p>How this will affect you depends on where you want to go to school. There are 4000 universities in America, and the vast majority of them look pretty much only at your numbers - only the very tippy top care about your extracurricular activities.</p>

3

<p>“I quit right at the end of first semester because I was simply losing interest in music and I felt that our program was very unorganized and manipulative with how they treated the kids.”</p>

<p>I have a question here - you’ve made a huge investment in music, developing skills and expertise over many years. It sounds like it was a great source of satisfaction to you at one point in time. Have you really lost interest or are you simply burned out and unhappy with the way your music program is organized? I ask because sometimes people need a break - a semester or year off - to refresh their interests or rethink their approach or to take a different direction. For my D, it involved taking a year off and then switching instruments. She also changed orchestras at one point to try out a new group and discontinuing with the school orchestra. Now in college, she took another break for freshman year, and is now back at it again because she misses it - but she’s only taking private lessons. </p>

<p>I’m not pressuring you to do music - as an EC it’s no better or worse than any other - but don’t confuse needing a break from ‘school music’ with being tired of music generally.</p>

<p>By the way, does your town have a volunteer fire/EMT dept? All their training is generally done evenings and weekends and that tends to be when they need the staffing most.</p>

4

<p>

You seem to misunderstand the role of ECs. As mentioned in other replies, most colleges in the country don’t care about ECs at all or give them trivial weight. Only the most selective care. If those are your goal then you have a problem, otherwise you’re fine. </p>

<p>Next, simply joining every club on campus is not what top colleges look for; they call those students “an inch deep and a mile wide”. They look for achievement and accomplishment, typically found in someone that has identified and interest and focused on it.

First off, you are making excuses. You may think you’re just explaining the impossibility of doing more, but really all you’ve given is a bunch of excuses as I’ll explain below.</p>

<p>You seem to have a passive attitude towards ECs, so in that sense the EC screen at top colleges will do exactly what they want by screening you out. You appear to have adopted the attitude that ECs are something provided by your school or someone else, and the measure applied by colleges is simply whether someone chose to take part or not. So if you can “show” how difficult it would have been for you to take part then you get a bye; that’s not explaining, that’s excusing. </p>

<p>You wrote about your extensive participation in music, which is quite laudable. However when you decided the program at your school was “program was very unorganized and manipulative” you up and quit. No quarrel with that, nobody should persist in that kind of environment, but it sounds like you just threw in the towel on music. </p>

<p>Top colleges look for students with inner drive. You could have joined a local or regional symphony or marching band, entered music competitions, gone to band camps, organized your own ensemble and earned side money playing for weddings and the like or simply put on concerts for the heck of it, set up a group to play at old folks homes, taken classes and played in groups at a local CC or college, set up a group to tutor younger kids in music. This is just off the top of my head, I could go on and on, and I bet you could think of 5x the things I could. </p>

<p>The important point is you apparently did absolutely none of this; if there wasn’t a volunteer opportunity you liked that someone else set up then you just gave up. And made excuses for doing nothing, whether you will admit it or not.</p>

5

<p>Tough love, mikemac. </p>

<p>Search the thread about ECs and you’ll get lots of good ideas. Despite popular opinion, ECs don’t have to be organized. They don’t have to be at school. You can do them by yourself. Artists who work alone in their home studios have an EC. Gardeners have an EC. A budding linguist who is teaching themselves a language has an EC. The kid who babysits their younger siblings and checks their homework while their non-English speaking parents are working has a major EC. The point is that they have accomplished or achieved something (which differentiates an EC from sitting in front of the TV all weekend.)</p>

6

<p>You can get a bike and get around. That’s what my kid do. A lot of her friends don’t have great ECs either. Band is the most time consuming ECs and some of them do not want to spend the time to do it. Think of ECs as something that will benefit you, ie help you toward adulthood, not necessarily something that you are good at either.</p>

7

<p>you can always volunteer at hospitals. there are no set hours and you can volunteer whenever you want during the day.</p>

8

<p>you can go to africa and help poor schildren or do something that stands out</p>

9

<p>"you can go to africa and help poor schildren or do something that stands out " LOL as if that was original…</p>

10

<p>“You can get a bike and get around.”</p>

<p>Add video games- lots of video games.</p>