<p>ohheymaddik, what school are you trying to get into? EC is just one of the requirements.</p>
<p>What is RSI</p>
<p>Anything that you believe shows something you truly care about</p>
<p>What do you guys think about marathon running? Not super fast (~3:50 pace), but a decent amount.</p>
<p>Sure, just show that you are truly passionate about it and how it helped you learn/grow</p>
<p>a good EC, i think, is the one that you are passionate about and the one that you enjoy the most.</p>
<p>this thread has been going for like 8 years…</p>
<p>Hey everyone, I have a quick question.</p>
<p>My University of California application is nearly complete, but I have a question on the extracurriculars.</p>
<p>You can list five ECs. I have four listed, and they’re fairly well-rounded (I’d like to think) - Engineering Society (build club leader), environmental volunteer club (president), summer music program (band’s songwriter), and junior varsity/varsity volleyball. So that’s academics, service, arts, and athletics. All of them show a decent amount of dedication and a good amount of hours.</p>
<p>I’m wondering if for the final spot I could mention a “one time” event rather than something I did for many weeks each year. I was a Breaking Down the Walls team leader, and that displays leadership and adds a social factor to my ECs list. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>I have a question
I played violin since 3rd grade and I think I play well
In middle school i was concert mistress
Unfortunately, I have no school orchestra (went to a Magnet HS), and thus can’t go to regionals
is this an EC that I should put on a college resume?</p>
<p>Well these ECs are primarily for US Students. What about International students? What’s the benchmark for them?</p>
<p>@EmeraldChocolate…you still continue violin in high school though right (private lessons, etc)? Is so it counts 
i play piano with private lessons and it countss…</p>
<p>Hi, I’m new to this forum.
So, I’m half German and I visit Germany every other year to see family, since I was a baby. Can I put that on an application? Besides visiting family we tour historical and culture landmarks, as well as travel to nearby countries such as the Czech Republic and Italy (this upcoming summer!). I plan to minor (or major, not sure yet) in German, and every time I go there I get a chance to obviously speak the language and further my knowledge of it.</p>
<p>@hannhr: Sure, but be careful because it may make you sound like you’re visiting Germany only for vacation trips rather than being interested in its history, culture, etc.</p>
<p>Awesome, I’ll make sure to emphasize that I seek out the history and culture. We visit a lot of castles, museums, and other historical sights. When I go this coming summer I’ll probably tag along with a school age relative to a German university.</p>
<p>@hannhr definitely make it sound like you were exploring culture. If you were part of a program for this mention that</p>
<p>They want quality, not quantity. Better to have a bunch of awards/accomplishments in one field then random participation in a plethora of activities.</p>
<p>My D does not have a lots of EC’s & she is in her Junior year.Does hse has a chance in MIT or CMu based on her very strong acedemic only profile?</p>
<p>You have quite a few EC but my question is do you really like doing all of these things because it just seems kinda random</p>
<p>Okay, I know this isn’t really on-topic, but there are people here who give incredible advice…</p>
<p>First off, I’m a not-quite-sixteen-year-old African girl. I sort of finished high school this year, at a private boarding school in my home country (I say sort of - I’ll explain later). I think my stats are pretty good:</p>
<p>SATs: 2360 (Math - 800, CR - 800, Writing - 760)
SAT Subject Tests: Chemistry 800, Biology-M 770, French 780
My country’s system doesn’t really do GPA, it does scores over a 100, but I used some scales I found online and apparently my cumulative GPA is 3.9 (I was in the top 3 of 109 pretty much throughout, and won a bunch of subject awards)
Been in a bunch of math and science competitions, all national stuff, placed first in about six of them (I don’t count these as ECs, because technically they follow the academic curriculum)
Got a full-tuition, full-boarding merit scholarship into my high school (for being top candidate in the entrance exams)
Essays: Pretty good, if I say so.</p>
<p>ECs:
Soccer team from 9th to 12th grade; made first team end of 10th grade, made co-captain middle of 11th (we don’t really have a varsity system but we represent the school in state tournaments? We won a couple of times?)
An 11th-grade, 3-week sort-of-military leadership training course that involved lots of being sent out hiking with limited resources, taking initiative tests, a rotating officer schedule, etc
About 90 hours community service in a local orphanage
First flautist (yes, I know, people call it flutist now) in school orchestra, and president of the Music club</p>
<p>I know they’re pretty few, but it’s hard to do anything when you’re a full-time boarder with a rigid schedule and your holidays are mostly spent doing ‘optional’ schoolwork. It’s easy to think that I have nothing to worry about and I’m probably trolling, but my story is just beginning. In my final year I applied to eight schools, but I could only get four fee waivers on time (I come from a low-income family) and I used them for Stanford, Notre Dame, Drexel (just in case) and USC. I’m happy to say I got into all four (BEAR WITH ME, PLEASE BEAR WITH ME, THE STORY IS JUST STARTING). Stanford and Notre Dame both offered to meet my financial need, and I picked Stanford. But this is where the trouble starts.</p>
<p>Here, the last classes of senior year are in February/March, though graduation isn’t till June/July because we still have to take the regional certificate exams. So I technically finished high school, still going strong, got my acceptance letter, responded to it, wrote my cert exams…
…and was forced to withdraw from school without a diploma a week to graduation.
See, there’s usually two weeks for final-year students to go home and get their prom/grad outfits (suits, dresses, etc) ready and bring them back to school. It’s just that when I returned after this mini-holiday, I brought a cell phone to school with me. Alright, admittedly, electronics are out-and-out banned on school grounds, but the handbook doesn’t state it’s an expellable offence (obviously). It’s not like there was no precedent; a couple of other students have been caught with phones in the past, but they just got 3 days of forced community service. And it’s not like I’d been suspended in the past (a double suspension translates to an expulsion). Of course, my record wasn’t stellar, but what’s on it is pretty wimpy stuff: leaving the hostels late (we were meant to be out by 6 am, mind you), skipping a couple of classes (for which I got the detentions I deserved), that sort of thing. And I wasn’t caught using the cell phone - it was in a bag I was with, and a teacher just conducted a random spot search (they do that a lot).</p>
<p>Needless to say, my high school reported this to Stanford along with a report containing I don’t know what, and being diploma-less I lost my Stanford admission. And now I’m back at square one, with a giant “HAS NO PROOF OF COMPLETING HIGH SCHOOL” hanging round my neck. I’m trying to improve my app by taking 6 APs, and I’m currently working on a research project (sadly, it’s not at all going to be done in time for the deadlines). I’m thinking of putting in more community service, and I have an internship at my primary school (I’m designing a staff/student/admin database for them). Oh, and my regional cert results came out this August, and I got high distinctions in all my papers :)</p>
<p>But the fact still remains that my high school has refused to release even my transcripts (which are awarded on solely academic grounds, so I just don’t get), and without those I’m sunk. My brother (who’s at Notre Dame) says he will speak to the Dean about reopening my place (since they have seen my practically complete transcript already, and if you squint a little and bend over a bit my regional cert and my APs (if I ace them) could stand in for the last term). Even then, the adcom doesn’t have to listen to him, and applying elsewhere is kinda impossible (no official transcript).</p>
<p>So does anyone have any ideas? Please? Deadlines are drawing closer (and passing!) and I have no idea what to do. I looked into Canada, UK, Europe, even universities in my country…same thing: no official transcript, no deal. Does anyone know of any non-traditional schools or something? I’m on my knees begging. You could change a girl’s life here!</p>
<p>1) It sounds like I’m giving excuses, but I’m not. I recognize that I deserved punishment, but with my records and bearing in mind my offence, a forced withdrawal a week to graduation was pure overkill. And taking my diploma so I have nothing to show for six years of work? That’s just…it doesn’t add up, especially as there are several people in my set who had far worse records (bullying, smuggling alcohol, ‘illicit relationships’ - don’t look at me, it was a Catholic school) and were allowed to graduate with their diplomas, prom and everything. There’s even a classmate of mine who was on the brink of expulsion twice in the past three years, and finally got nabbed for bullying around the same period I was caught. He only missed the prom and the graduation ceremony; his diploma was mailed to his parents this summer.
That being said, I was never particularly the current administration’s darling, because I was a bit too liberal for their tastes. In my final year they made everyday morning Mass compulsory for all non-Muslim students, and I found it absurd. Less than half the student body is actually Catholic. You can’t force the majority of your population to subscribe to a view they don’t hold, especially a religious one. And the hours were abominable (as I said, 6 am <em>shiver</em>). In addition, the now-compulsory Mass took up an hour of morning time that students traditionally used to study. A small group of us presented our side to the administration, and got a reply along the lines of “We don’t care what you think; you will do what we want”. So we decided to demonstrate our objection. We’d go to the chapel really early and just sit on the steps or in the smaller meditation room. If asked what we were doing, we’d say “Observing our own religion” and point out that technically we were at the chapel - just not for Mass. The school admin was furious, and after a week punished us to work in the piggery 
But they picked on me specially because, in their words, I “thought I was a sacred cow” (perhaps because of my scholarship status).</p>
<p>2) I am posting this here instead of starting a new thread because I am terrified someone from my high school will find it It’s also why I was careful not to mention any names ;)</p>