<p>I’m a senior this year and applying to some highly selective colleges. I have the honor to serve as a member of my district’s school board. Does anyone know how that is viewed in the admissions process? Clearly it’s helpful, but is it an exceptionally outstanding extra-curricular?</p>
<p>I would think so. The kid in my graduating class who was student on the board (a very large sch district), a National Merit finalist & a 3 varsity sport athlete ending up being offered a full merit scholarship to Harvard.</p>
<p>Huh? Harvard doesn’t offer any merit scholarships!</p>
<p>Congrats, OP! I’m the student rep for my school district too (but I’m a junior). I’ve been hearing from my colleagues that this position really stands out to adcoms.</p>
<p>Good luck to you, and let’s both do well this year.</p>
<p>@rmldad,
You are confusing National Merit Finalist with just plain ole merit. Harvard does indeed award scholarships for being outstanding, as opposed to just giving FA for being financially needy</p>
<p>Harvard doesn’t give merit scholarships. Their individual awards may have interesting titles, but they are all need based.</p>
<p>rmldad and sherpa are correct - no such thing as merit scholarships at Harvard, “scholarships” are need based.</p>
<p>OP</p>
<p>It’s a very good EC in any case. How did you get on the board – were you elected (in a general, i.e., not school election), or does your board have a student member each year? Elected by the public would seem better. </p>
<p>Otherwise – probably up there with Student Body President.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>PS all 8 Ivies are solely need based on scholarships and have been for many years.</p>
<p>wow, when did Harvard change its policy re merit-based scholarships? The kid in my HS class who was on the school board did indeed receive a full merit scholarship from Harvard, but that was 20+ years ago.</p>
<p>Not sure I’d say “exceptionally outstanding” in the case of the Ivies, where you’ve got people who have done crazy stuff like publish a textbook, but it’s definitely strong in that it (1) carries responsibility, and (2) is obviously selective.</p>
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<p>Harvard wasn’t giving merit scholarships then, either.</p>
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<p>Ditto. It’s a very good extracurricular accomplishment. And that’s a good thing. But it’s not a key that will unlike the ivy-covered gates. Harvard and its peer institutions will get thousands of applications from students who have very good extracurricular accomplishments.</p>
<p>I think it really depends what you did. Is it something you are writing an essay about? If all you did was get selected and go to a bunch of meetings, then it’s impressive but are lots of other things other kids will do that will impress the adcoms more.</p>
<p>It’s a good EC but there are probably nearly as many school board reps as there are HS. All the local HSs around here have one rep from the student body, making it as differentiable as Val or Sal.</p>