<p>actually i would view 500 volunteer hours as more prestigious than class president. volunteer hours show dedication to helping your community. Class president in hs is based off of who’s more popular, sexier, etc…</p>
<p>You’re right mrpop… Class president isn’t a good example of “prestigious”… leadership in general is important. The awards that Pima was referring to are more like NMSF, Siemens, other scholastic awards (on a wider basis than just your school), etc.</p>
<p>Astro is correct I am speaking of NMSF, or other scholastic awards, such as, state debate champion. </p>
<p>However, 500 hours may be presitigious in your eyes, here is the down side of it, your transcript at some schools, will place your school ec’s on it, thus, there is verification. I can easily say I did 500 hours of volunteering at my church or soup kitchen. There is no proof, unless that is the person who writes your rec. Only proof that I can think of otherwise is BSA for Eagle because that is a requirement to become an Eagle Scout. I don’t think that the admission boards for acceptance will be calling up every applicants employers and volunteer places, it is taken on word. However, as I stated, at least for our DS’s HS in NC and DD’s hs in VA. It states in the official transcript every organization, yrs and positions that they held for things like, NMSF, student council, NHS, FHS, Key, etc along with athletics. It is easily verified with no work on the admissions dept.</p>
<p>I also agree with gina to a point. Eventually you are going to get to a breaking point for acceptance, and then your ec’s will become an issue. If your stats are great, than you will be shot straight over to the yes pile and looked again at for LEPs and scholarships, if you are on that line between Fall and Spring, than those ec’s will help. However, she is correct, they will also play a part in scholarship/merit.</p>
<p>We all want to think it is a purely driven number issue, but if it was how do you make the decision for the very last admit? It will not be as if one has a 3.25 gpa, 1190 SAT and 5 APs, against someone with a 3.26, etc. Approximately, 30K applicants apply yrly, for 11K spots, there will be a ton of duplicates as far as stats, so how do they choose for 1 spot when they have 50 with the same stats? Subjectively by your ECs, recs, and essays. That has been my point, eventually those EC’s will play a factor into not only if you get in, but programs, and scholarships.</p>
<p>They actually have a matrix, that they use, a X% points given to your gpa, rank and SAT, X% points for the rigors of your course load and school, X% for recs, X% for EC’s, X% for Essays. A final score will be totalled and a line will be drawn for LEP, for B/K, for merit, for in and for out.</p>
<p>how competitive are the OOS admissions from CA?</p>
<p>Not very, the real competition is NJ/NY, even to some small extent Florida (many NJ/NYers move there) and CT. I have noticed just on this site that in the last 2 yrs, UMD is getting more OOS from the west coast applying and going, the other spot is TX that is increasing, nothing to be freaked over, just their diversity programs are working since more and more students are coming from outside the ACC. Let’s be real, one way schools get exposure is through their sports, and UMD (until this yr especially) has had a good football and bball programs that are regularly televised on ESPN. Kids watch their home state team play at UMD and see tons of kids in the stadiums with school spirit, places a light bulb of well how about UMD. Then they find out that it is a train ride away from DC, a bus ride from Baltimore Inner Harbor and the bulb gets brighter, then they find out about the LEPS and even brighter. </p>
<p>The problem that I have seen with students from far away OOS, is that they have a hard time transitioning into EAST COAST LIFE! UMD having many NY/NJ students and being so close to Dc and Baltimore is what I would call typical East Coast, it is not laid back.</p>