<p>I was once the valedictorian of the #1 school in New York City. And now I’ve got a 30% chance of making it into anywhere. I have no community service hours and have never done a sport. So steer clear of that, is my advice.</p>
<p>what is an “EC”? (I’m not from American for forgive me please)</p>
<p>It stands for ‘extracurricular’ (activity).</p>
<p>A good EC is something that truly interests you- enough so that your commitment to it is apparent</p>
<p>ddude. hi. i need 15 posts to private mesasage</p>
<p>Good ECs should showcase your interests. I think some colleges may see through ECs that are out of place or do not reflect your true character.</p>
<p>People need to relax about extra curricular. Stop freaking out and stop joining 100 different clubs you don’t give a crap about</p>
<p>I think good ECs are ECs that showcase your passions, which is pretty vague, and sometimes it’s hard to figure out your passions. You don’t need to write a best selling book, or find a cure for cancer, to have a good EC. People are diverse, and you are completely different than the person standing next to you, so make sure you showcase who you are in your ECs. Don’t try to be impressive, because once you find ECs that are extensions of your interests, they will be impressive.</p>
<p>As someone who does sports, I feel they’re undervalued as ec’s. Academic things are great but just because ec’s contain sports don’t make them weak. Thoughts?</p>
<p>I’m hoping that my EC’s are good enough to get me into a top university…Stanford, Harvard, UC Berkley, or Yale would be nice. The thing is, I haven’t done anything extraordinary, mainly because I live in a fairly isolated community in Northern California.</p>
<p>Going into my Junior year in a week, I will have 1)Been President of a statewide club’s school chapter that educates teens about the dangers of alcohol and other drugs 2) Played tennis for 2 years and plan to continue for 2 more years 3) Completed over 250 hrs. of community service and 4) Taken over a service project that educates teens about distracted driving and safe driving habit that I will also continue working with. In my Junior Year, I will be president of the same AOD education club as well as DECA (a business and marketing club), which I was an officer of last year and have done projects for two years with, placing at the statewide level each year.</p>
<p>Tell me, does this demonstrate the “passion” that colleges look for when reveiwing applicants’ ECs? My grades are fine, as I have only gotten As, having a 4.25 weighted GPA and am currently first in my class. I am really passionate about business and marketing as well as teen safety education.</p>
<p>@Aek525 </p>
<p>The problem is so many people play sports and many of them are on the varsity team with some sort of honors. What would differentiate you would be if you were nationally ranked in that sport.</p>
<p>EVALUATE ME!!! :IVYIES</p>
<p>Thus far in my high school career, here are my “vitals”:</p>
<p>Incoming Junior from a 3000+ fairly competitive school.</p>
<p>SAT:2200(plan to take it again this fall/spring)
ACT/SAT II: Havent taken any yet
AP: World History, Human geography, Chinese(all 5’s)
Major Awards: Potential AP scholar
GPA: 4.0/4.0
Class Rank: 2/688</p>
<p>Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): NEHS, NCHS, Chemistry Club, Debate(VP,18 hours a week), Outreach Club at school(Founder, President), tennis(2 years), orchestra(1 year)
Job/Work Experience: 6 hr a week at a established museum(independent from volunteering)
Volunteer/Community service:300+ Hours volunteering at a science museum over 2 years; Taught Chinese to students through a Rice University program at a local schools.
Summer Activities: Intern at Texas Children’s Hospital 2 weeks, Volunteering 100+ hours at a children’s camp</p>
<p>State (if domestic applicant): Tx
School Type: Public
Ethnicity: Asian
Gender: M
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): None</p>
<p>@GGHEasy</p>
<p>You have an awesome rank and you’re competitive in test scores and extracurriculars. If you can write an awesome essay and get good recommendations, I’d say the ivies are reaches (but not out of reach), with cornell maybe being low reach or even high match. If your school sends a lot of kids to top schools each year you stand a good chance! Make sure you get matches and safeties though</p>
<p>How are my Extracurriculars? I’m gonna be a junior. I guess you could say my passions are robotics/tech stuff, history/politics, and adventure/outdoorsy stuff. Yeah, I know, three pretty far off things…</p>
<p>Boy Scouts. Currently a Life Scout going for my Eagle very soon. Past or present leadership positions include Patrol Leader, Scribe, Assistant Patrol Leader, Assist Senior Patrol Leader and Senior Patrol Leader. Also part of the Boy Scouts “Honour Society” called the Order of the Arrow. </p>
<p>FIRST Robotics Competition Team 303. I’m a subteam leader and member of student leadership council. We placed third place in the world this year and won the Newton Division. </p>
<p>Captain of FIRST Technical Challenge Team 756. Our robot won second place at the regional competition, Bridgewater showdown. We were also the first team in the state of NJ to successfully accomplish the the autonomous task. </p>
<p>Founder and President of BRHS RoboSoccer Club. We do a robotics competition called RoboCup in which we make autonomous soccer robots. I did this competition earlier and placed first in the nation and third internationally. Inspired to open the opportunity to other students at my school, I created the club. We came in second place in the nation this year, which is the first time with club I created. </p>
<p>Team captain for ZeroRobotics Team Quark Charm. It’s a competition in which we program satellites on the ISS. We came in 9th place in the world.
FBLA Webmaster. I participated in the Entrepreneurship category and placed first place in my state, NJ, and top 15 at Nationals. </p>
<p>Forensics Public Forum Debate. </p>
<p>Yearbook Club</p>
<p>Vice President of Geography Club. 4th place in WorldQuest NYC Regional. </p>
<p>Founder and President of Web Design Club </p>
<p>Co-founder and Co-president of Atheist Club</p>
<p>Politics Club</p>
<p>Founder and President of History Club</p>
<p>I scuba dive and am currently an Advanced Open Water Diver. </p>
<p>I also play golf for fun but may try out for school team next year </p>
<p>I volunteered this summer at the local hospital. But I quickly got bored of the menial tasks like sitting at the front desk where no one would come anyways. So, I was working on some graphics for my app and someone noticed. They told me that the creative media director was looking for some help and that would be a better use of my time. So I worked with him for the summer with stuff like photography, graphic design, print media creation, and community outreach/PR. It was a lot better use of my time and I actually learned a lot too. Not sure if that’s considered an internship or volunteering…</p>
<p>I also have my own app company, PocketApps, which makes Android and iOS apps. I currently have one released called Unicorn Hop with many more on the way!</p>
<p>I’m probably not the best person to be responding (freshman here!), but I might as well. </p>
<p>From what I’ve seen and heard you have a very strong set of EC’s. It seems like you actually enjoy them and aren’t just doing them to get into the Ivies. If I was an admissions officer, and you had a decent academic record, I would seriously consider you. Not much else to it but that. </p>
<p>Best of luck from down under (the high school ladder, not Australia)</p>
<p>Haha, “decent” I guess. I mean I don’t have close to the best grades in my class (extremely competitive school) but I do take all of the most rigorous courses. I get mostly A’s and A-'s and occasionally a B+ but usually not A+'s. Still in the top 5% of my class. I guess I spend time I could be using to study on my extracurriculars lol.
I hope I make up for it in my test scores. I mean, I got a 34 on the ACT going in with no prep whatsoever. I kinda signed up for it and didn’t realise I had a robotics competition the next day… So I didn’t get any chance to even do a practice test as my mind was concerned with other things, namely getting a working robot for a competition 24 hours away! I’m gonna retry and see if I can bring that up to a 35 or 36.
But yeah, I definitely have a passion for the stuff I do. What’s the point of doing it otherwise!? But anyways, thanks for the feedback and best of luck to you (from midway up the ladder)!</p>
<p>WindCloudUltra,that was most inspiring.No wonder,it worked in your favour.I was worried about my ECs but I can surely say I did them with all my heart.Hope they work for me.</p>
<p>okay so if i take band for 4 years and I play the oboe, and did out side of school symphony. Is that a decent EC?</p>
<p>Lmao, nice one!</p>
<p>I’m going into my junior year now and these are my ec’s :</p>
<p>Future business leaders of america 9-11
Student council 9-11
Ski club 9-11
Odyssey of the mind 10
Environmental club 10
Field hockey 11
Lacrosse 11
SADD- 11</p>
<p>I am definitely going to continue with all my ec’s into next year but the problem is: im stopping OM because it wasnt a great experience, should I continue with environmental club or stop it and do foreign language club? I’m unaure because during the winter I work daily after school and the envir club advisor gets angry when you miss even one meeting and foreign lang club only meets every 2 weeks, HELP</p>