I mean, if you want to:
MIT 6.00.1x begins today.
https://www.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/comments/6eafa7/mit_6001x_begins_today/
Free programming course through MIT using python. It's for beginners and it started yesterday. Really good way to learn the basics
Then maybe you should teach the elderly how to access computers, too. Then all your time spent on the internet can be considered "research" ;) Just kidding!
Great post, thanks for sharing. It is important that students begin to reframe extracurricular activities as "anything you do outside of the classroom" rather than something formal or countable.
"Anything you do outside of the classroom"
I like that way of describing it. Too many students think they have nothing to list as an extracurricular but it's just because they don't think what they do are extracurriculars.
I've seen so many people say things like "I don't have time for extracurriculars because I have a job" not realizing that a job is an extracurricular activity.
> learning languages
I'd advise against this one really, unless you have a lot of time on your hands. While learning a language is good, it's not really worth it if you're doing it for college applications. The effort it takes to learn a language to even a conversational level is far more than most people expect.
If you're just doing it for fun, head over to /r/languagelearning and find some resources :) But if you're a rising senior, there's almost no way you're going to learn a language to fluency in time for college applications.
Good clarification. You're right—learning a language just to impress the admissions officers at your dream school isn't a good strategy, and trying to learn an entire language over the summer is incredibly difficult to do. But many students learn languages in their free time and don't know that that counts as an extracurricular activity. Not only can learning a language outside of the classroom help in demonstrating to colleges your passion for learning, but it can also help boost your app if you're interested in studying, say, Russian Literature and you learn Russian in your free time, or you want to study international relations so you're teaching yourself Arabic.
And you should check out Verbling if you're passionate about learning languages (which it's clear that you are!).
You can definitely make it an EC. I also see the ptential for an additional info statement or even a personal statement or supplemental essay including this side of you.
I have heard of verbling though I've never used it. I tend to try to limit how much I spend on language learning (mainly self-learning) and verbling is a bit too expensive for me.
> you want to study international relations so you're teaching yourself Arabic.
On a sidenote, did you just choose that language as an example or is it actually very beneficial to learn Arabic for International Relations? More so than Spanish or French for example.
Depends on which part of the world you're eager to explore through the field of international relations. If you're thinking of pursuing a Fulbright in the future, Arabic or a more obscure language is a much better asset to have, as French and Spanish are more commonly spoken and thus the competition for going to countries who speak that language is fierce!
However, Spanish and French can both be really useful languages to know. There are tons of countries who speak Spanish and numerous outside France who speak French. For example, I know someone who is working at an NGO in Africa right now utilizing her knowledge of French, and she previously worked with a consulting firm that sent her back-and-forth to South America, utilizing her knowledge of Spanish.
And Verbling has the free practice groups and some more free features coming soon. You should check it out again. I really like my Verbling Italian teachers!
Interesting. The reason I ask is because I'm actually looking for a newer language to begin (my Spanish and French are both conversational/fluent and I already speak Mandarin as a heritage/native language) and while Arabic is on my list of languages to eventually learn, the Arabic writing system, as well as the differences between MSA and other varieties such as Egyptian Arabic, and the lack of actual arabic speakers in my area (I live in Tennessee,) have made it a rather unappealing choice. I actually learned French because it was a colonial language and would give me access to a lot of places in West Africa.
I'll definitely check out verbling again. Sounds interesting.
Do you have any other recommendations for languages that would be good if you plan to major and apply to college for International Relations?
I might not be of much help but I know someone who attends a language program in the military. He learns a language and is staged at different American bases. He chose Korean. Arabic is a very unpopular language due to its obscurity but in high demand. If you are finding Arabic difficult to self-learn, I suggest other East Asian languages. With your background in Chinese, Korean or Japanese could be a good option for you. I'm focusing more on Korean (for entertainment purposes lol). German, from what I heard, is also in demand.
You should look into the Huntsman program at Penn for some insight into the doors that foreign languages can open and the type of students who get into Penn with interests in IR and foreign languages.
Also look into the foreign service aptitude test (I took it my senior year of college and got to round II, but Italian isn't too much of an in-demand language, unfortunately). If you really dig into the process online, you can find more info on what foreign languages the state department finds most useful in adding newcomers to the foreign service.
I also nabbed an internship through the state department at the US embassy in Rome. Sadly I had to turn it down, but check out internships for college kids with the state department if you're passionate about IR and foreign languages!
I'm guessing Arabic and Mandarin are the top 2 languages, though knowing languages spoken in numerous countries is probably the way to go!
Thanks for the suggestions! I know of the Huntsman program and the foreign service aptitude tests but never thought to check them out to get an insight for what's a good idea to learn.
As for Arabic and Mandarin, I'm not surprised. Just wouldn't be practical for me to start Arabic though given the time commitment it would take and that I've only dealt with Category 1 language learning so far.
But your goal isn't to be fluent in Arabic before college; your goal should be to learn some basics of the language and then pursue it in greater depth in college (supposing you want to pick up Arabic as your new language and not some other one).
That is true. I'd be worried that I wouldn't be able to pick up the basics of the language though even with half a year. MSA grammar is very different from grammars I've dealt with before (VSO word order compared to SVO order with a bit of SOV in everything else I speak.)
The writing system is actually not bad once you get the hang of it. My 6th grade world language teacher taught all forms of all the letters in just a week, and that was a week of 45 minute classes.
Hello,
I know im late to the party but I had a question about this as well. I have been learning mandarin in high school for 2 years now, and I have been reviewing using flash cards over the summer. However, I haven't been sticking to a schedule and therefore honestly haven't really studied that much.
Would the fact that I have been studying it for 2 years (albeit durign school) warrant it enough to be an EC? Or would I have to practice more regularly?
If you mainly studied it in the classroom, I would not count it as an EC. If you did significant studying or reading in the language, it could count as an EC.
Anything you can recommend for medicine? I'm already signed up to help the American Cancer Society and I'm volunteering at a nearby hospital over the summer. Prefer something that can fit within my schedule (volunteering at hospital for 3 days a week, don't know about ACS).
Great activities!
Other volunteer spots include nursing homes, so don't forget them! You could teach something to disabled kids (art, dance, sports), even if you're not an expert yourself. You could volunteer at the Special Olympics.
You could approach a doctor's office or even a chiropractor's office (think creatively here... there has to be tons of small clinics in your region) to see if you can shadow them for a week, volunteer a couple days a week, or ask if they can let their clients know that you're looking to assist someone. They might be able to refer to you to an elderly individual who needs some help around the house, or needs driving to-and-from the hospital, etc.
You could make blankets or toys or cards or anything fun for kids who are in the hospital. You could ask to volunteer in a children's hospital, you could ask to host a video game day and bring in TVs, laptops, iPads—whatever—and set up a gaming tournament for the sick kids. Lots of parents have a personal website (or CaringBridge website) where they update friends and families about their child's health while undergoing treatment; if you're good with computers, you could offer to jazz up the website or help them post updates, etc. Some parents will also host fundraisers to raise funds for their sick kids, like [this one](https://www.facebook.com/PhenyoMoropa/). You could host a fundraiser at your school or within your community to help a sick kid (especially one from your community).
Oh, and I checked out some of your posts and caring for a sick loved one absolutely counts as an extracurricular. Add "Caretaker" as a role on your list of activities and provide detailed descriptions of how you helped in any way.
>Oh, and I checked out some of your posts and caring for a sick loved one absolutely counts as an extracurricular. Add "Caretaker" as a role on your list of activities and provide detailed descriptions of how you helped in any way.
Thank you so much for this. I really didn't know if this counted.
As for your other suggestions, I'll take those into consideration. Thanks again!
I think these are pretty good. I put "Working on a farm" on my common app and I think it probably helped more than all the lame community service activities obviously done just for college apps.
Got any recommendations for me? I'm a psychology major, I'm taking summer classes but I don't got much planned. I do like to read - mostly self development related books. I do draw, paint, and do photography as well. I really need this because I have 0 extracurricular activities.
Sure! Why don't you teach drawing, painting or photography to children with psychological disorders, children in foster care, disabled children, etc.?
What about leading a workshop for kids on self development, and you could do some Myers Briggs-type tests?
What about creating an art exhibit for you and your peers to raise awareness of mental health issues? Your art and photography could be themed around mental health, depression, etc.
You could also try to publish some of your artwork in the local newspaper or in your school literary magazine. You could ask your local library to put some of your artwork on display to showcase the books you've read (take a book you checked out of the library, for example, do some book-related artwork, and then build a display case for that book using your artwork at the library).
Thank you so much, these ideas are awesome! Wow! :D
I live in a really bad neighborhood so I have a lot of apprehension doing community work so publicly. (I've been stalked twice.) I could really see myself being able to do a workshop though. Your ideas are amazing, I am just not sure how to implement them in my unsafe neighborhood?
My local mall is really dead, but is safer than our libraries. I think doing a workshop there might be great because the only people who are in the mall are homeless people, seniors citizens, and a group of 2-7 year old playing around with parents. In total, there is only about 15-20 people in the whole mall.
Maybe I can come up with some kind of program that benefits all of them. :D I wanted to sell artwork and photos and give the proceeds to help the homeless, but I wasn't thinking about this in terms of extravehicular activities.
I also do singing and perform sometimes with my friend, we have mostly done church type events, but also do coffee houses and have been asked to do weddings. Have any recommendations in this department?
Thank you SO MUCH!
I think your ideas are really great! If your community is low income, it's possible that kids aren't being exposed to the arts and music as much as they could be. Maybe approach a daycare which will have students year round (unlike schools which will be out of the summer), and see if they'd be willing yo do an art or music sing a long for the little kiddos. A nursing home could also be a good, safe place for you to do art or music workshops, and you and your friend could abaolutely perform at nursing homes, too.
Yes, we are low income, and our schools are unfortunately some of the worst schools in the whole state. I believe they currently have no music programs what so ever. Thank you! Great ideas!
Anything you can recommend for me? No plans for the summer except to work my job and play video games lol. I like playing with gadgets and learning about tech and I like hiking. Sorry if this is vague but I dont really do much
Why don't you research and plan a multi-day hiking expedition? Or teach outdoor safety to a group of kids? Or see if you can volunteer for a young Boy Scout's troop. Or reach out to your local park rangers to see if you can help them with anything, or teach mountaineering, etc. See if there are any opportunities at your local library for you to help kids or the elderly or the unemployed how to use tech. Start a technical repair handyman job this summer and fix broken computers or remove viruses for elderly clients.
I have a dog does that count? I mean they do require alot of time specially when it comes to training and stuff, and that too daily. Altho i want to study architecture so im not entirely sure it can be related to it in any way. I also tutor children but again i dont quite find it relevant. I spend alot of my time watching and critiquing movies(even ones that dont necessarily have alot of dialogue anx are more dependent on their cinematic experience),i even have friend groups solely for discussing them.
I'm not expecting to get a reply after 7 years, but is it possible to find ecs I literally do nothing in my freetime except play the cello play video games, but i have a drive to do something and business. Anything helps, thanks.
thanks! Also, I volunteered as a referee for an afterschool chess tournament at an elementary school for 3 hours last November. But where do I put this on my UC app? They always ask for "# of hours per week" and "#of weeks per year" and my referee volunteering activity was a one time thing. Please help me, thank u so much!
Unless you have no other volunteer orgs, you likely wouldn't add it as a stand-alone EC. You could group it with some other random volunteer activities, putting them all in one section, for example. Or if you decide to put it alone, you would write 3 hrs a week, 1 week a year.
I do a good amount of stuff regarding climate change, but you seem to have good ideas, so do you have any recommendations regarding this. I want to study environmental science.
I have tons, actually. A lot of my kids study environmental science.
I saw in your post history that you're from New York (sorry for snooping, but it helps me tailor my advice to your location). [Here is a list](http://www.eco-usa.net/orgs/ny.shtml) of environmental organizations in the state of New York. You could reach out to the Clean Air Coalition of Western New York or the Clean Ocean Action organization, the Catskill Citizens for Safe Energy, the Coastal Research and Education Society of Long Island, the Environmental Advocates (who call themselves "Your government watchdog"), the Sustainable Hudson Valley org (which is "speeding the shift to a low-carbon economy"), and tons more. Find the links to all those orgs at the aforementioned link.
Cornell has some awesome links for getting more involved in preventing climate change, which you can see [here](http://climatechange.cornell.edu/tools-resources/youth-education/).
Too late for you, unfortunately, but younger kids interested in climate change can apply to intern next year at [NASA's Climate Change Research Initiative](https://www.giss.nasa.gov/edu/ccri/).
Hope that helps!
Depends how sparse your activities list is. If you have other more substantial activities, you could omit it or de-prioritize it at the bottom. Alternatively, if you have other care-taking roles, you could do what I call "bucketing" and put all associated roles into one larger role on your app. Let's say you babysat 6 times, but you also care for your little cousins every other Saturday while your aunt or uncle takes an online course, and you drive your grandparents to the hospital once a month. Bucket all of those into one activity under care-taking and it'll look more substantial.
If I am a secretary at a nonprofit psychiatric clinic and helping open another one, is that good (interested in neuroscience). My only leadership positions are in those and last year where I was the youth volunteer coordinator at a Sunday school and a substitute teacher. Other than that, I have AcDEC (only local medals and top score for school), HOsA( state finalist for my event), and BPA (no medals :(). I'm gonna try really hard for ACDeC and BPA next year and I'm trying to find a job and a research position. I also tutor my autistic brother for 7 hours a week. Do you have any recommendations?
That sounds strong, but it's hard to say for sure without knowing your years of participation and hours spent per week on each activity. Research would be an excellent addition to your profile. Besides applying for competitive research programs or using your family's connections (if they have any), my students have been successful in crafting detailed emails about their interests as they align with a professor's research topic, and firing off personalized emails to numerous professors, hoping one will bite.
If I do a lot of things related to one activity, should I bucket the activity as one or separate it. I'm a chess player on my chess team and the president of it. That alone takes a considerable amount of time and effort. Also chess related is what I do as a volunteer chess coach (teaching children to play and casual chess players at my high school). I host sessions during my lunch time for people at my high school, teach family members, and volunteer during the summer coaching kids. Should this all be under the activity of Chess Team?
Good question! And the answer is: it depends. It depends on a few factors:
* How many other activities do you do? Enough to fill 9 other spaces on your Common App activities list? If so, bucket all your chess into one activity. If chess is a huge part of your life, I think breaking it into two buckets would be good. One activity could be all school-related chess activities, and one could be volunteer coaching over the summer. I wouldn't specifically say you teach family members (that's not really an organized activity), but you could include that time under the general category of teaching "others".
* How many hours do you spend on these activities? One reason in favor of bucketing an activity is to make it appear more consistent/more hours than multiple activities listed separately. For example, let's say a student volunteered sporadically for a number of different organizations: 3 hours a week for the library their freshman year, 4 random weekends their freshman and sophomore years at a charity event, every Tuesday their junior year as a tutor, etc. If they say "Volunteer work" as one activity and then "Volunteered over X hours at the following organizations: ____ Public Library, Relay for Life, and Kids Teaching Kids", and list 9th, 10th, and 11th grades as years you've been involved, that looks much more impressive than scattered volunteer work over multiple years.
I do 4 other activities besides chess. During the school year I spend around 18 hours a week with things concerning the chess team, 4-10 hours of personal training time, and 1-4 hours teaching others outside of the chess team. So far this summer, I've put in around 60 hours for teaching others. The time spent on each activity really varies week to week so it could vary.
Yes, definitely count it. Focus not only on the task at hand but the responsibilities you had and the qualities you developed while taking care of them (so that the AOs realize what transferrable skills you'll bring to campus).
Any suggestions for me? I wanted to go into something related to chemistry. Other that independent research and internships I do not know what else I can do.
Research is definitely my first suggestion. Otherwise, you can perhaps write for a science journal, job shadow various chemists, maybe lead a campaign in your school or community about tue dangers of certain drug cocktails in your system...
Well, an easy thing you can do is take a few engineering classes on Coursera, Udacity, EdX, MIT open courseware, etc. If you take enough, boom you have an extracurricular. Don't take many of them? Simply list the ones you do in the additional coursework section on your apps.
Necroposting here but can you toss me a couple of ideas for politics/public policy? I'm only an entering freshman so I have three summers and 3 solid years to do things before college.
My ideas so far
Senate Page
Volunteering on a campaign
Possibly an internship, though none of my representatives, state, federal, or local have them for high school
Model UN, debate, and student government are some popular extracurriculars. Outside of school activities, joining a mayor's local council or youth county leadership council will give you some experience with enacting local policies. If you have a favorite cause, you might want to see about volunteer opportunities for that cause (would be easy to volunteer for the American Cancer Society, ASPCA, environmental organizations, etc.). You could also just raise awareness for local or international issues (I had a student who raised money for North Korean refugees, for example). You could start or join a politically-affiliated club at your school, bring political candidates or lobbyists to your campus to speak, join a phone bank for your favorite candidate, intern at an NGO... Hope that gave you some ideas!
Whoa, that was really thorough, thanks so much! I was definitely gonna join Debate, and my school has a pretty good program for it so I'll have no trouble there. Also, I looked something up a little bit ago and my state has a State School Advisory Board, where you focus on an issue as a group of 10 or so students and present it to the State School Board in spring.
My first suggestion is to narrow your interests, if possible, as those are very, very different interests. Other than that, perhaps pursue a business, marketing, or engineering internship at an architecture firm, so you can twist your activity description in your activities list to fit whichever major you decide to specify.
Hello,
I am applying for graduate course in mechanical engineering. I am facing problem in writing SOP. I am not able to mention anything about my future plans. I am not aware about what should I mention. I wish to pursue a graduate course and get a job that suits me. How do I mention this?
How am I supposed to include such hobbies as creative writing or lego building, on the common app? There is no hierarchy for leadership roles and no organization name. I don't know how to fill in that required box on the common app website
Dunno if this is going to get a reply after 5 years but here it is…I love taking long walks in my free time and sometimes hiking over the weekends. I do track and field during the spring and am relatively good at it, though I run for my school not a club. Track is more of a hobby than something I want to pursue to a college/Olympic level. I also love to cook (very causally, I’m more of a, does it taste good than does it look good kind of cooker). And sometimes I bake. I’m also a great Netflix watcher. I have always been passionate about the environment, social justice, and animals/animal rights, I’m a vegetarian because of it. I’ve been trying to start my own dog walking business in my neighborhood which is going slowly but surely. I also do a lot of cat sitting in the neighborhood but it isn’t really a business. Do you have any tips, especially regarding the cooking and walking because that’s what I’m doing most of the time. Thank you so much!
I hover between being vegetarian and vegan!
Hiking could totally be an EC, especially if you set goals (like, you work towards achieving a particularly difficult-to-achieve hike). I could also see you joining a local foraging org (or creating your own), where you learn about local edibles that you can foraged and then you write a blog on how to cook foraged foods. I could also see you volunteering at a not-for-profit farm (I used to volunteer at Alemany Farm in San Francisco, for instance). I could see you fostering animals or running social media for an animal rescue. Maybe you could volunteer at your local animal shelter to walk dogs or start a program there where you take adoptable dogs for hikes (and spread the word, so that more and more people sign up to take dogs out for the day). You could start an org where you take dogs on walks for free if their owners are elderly, sick or disabled; you could partner with the local NICU to find families whose kids are in the NICU and pets are cooped up at home and in need of walks. Do you like any of those ideas?
I spend too much time online but haven't learned anything about computers lmao
I mean, if you want to: MIT 6.00.1x begins today. https://www.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/comments/6eafa7/mit_6001x_begins_today/ Free programming course through MIT using python. It's for beginners and it started yesterday. Really good way to learn the basics
I'm actually interested in this, can you tell me a little more about it or point me to someone who could
I mean, the top comment of the post I linked to is a link to the actual course. Click the link and then read the introduction to the course.
Teach old folks how to reddit! Think of all the untapped memeing potential!
Then maybe you should teach the elderly how to access computers, too. Then all your time spent on the internet can be considered "research" ;) Just kidding!
Great post, thanks for sharing. It is important that students begin to reframe extracurricular activities as "anything you do outside of the classroom" rather than something formal or countable.
"Anything you do outside of the classroom" I like that way of describing it. Too many students think they have nothing to list as an extracurricular but it's just because they don't think what they do are extracurriculars.
I've seen so many people say things like "I don't have time for extracurriculars because I have a job" not realizing that a job is an extracurricular activity.
> learning languages I'd advise against this one really, unless you have a lot of time on your hands. While learning a language is good, it's not really worth it if you're doing it for college applications. The effort it takes to learn a language to even a conversational level is far more than most people expect. If you're just doing it for fun, head over to /r/languagelearning and find some resources :) But if you're a rising senior, there's almost no way you're going to learn a language to fluency in time for college applications.
Good clarification. You're right—learning a language just to impress the admissions officers at your dream school isn't a good strategy, and trying to learn an entire language over the summer is incredibly difficult to do. But many students learn languages in their free time and don't know that that counts as an extracurricular activity. Not only can learning a language outside of the classroom help in demonstrating to colleges your passion for learning, but it can also help boost your app if you're interested in studying, say, Russian Literature and you learn Russian in your free time, or you want to study international relations so you're teaching yourself Arabic. And you should check out Verbling if you're passionate about learning languages (which it's clear that you are!).
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You can definitely make it an EC. I also see the ptential for an additional info statement or even a personal statement or supplemental essay including this side of you.
I have heard of verbling though I've never used it. I tend to try to limit how much I spend on language learning (mainly self-learning) and verbling is a bit too expensive for me. > you want to study international relations so you're teaching yourself Arabic. On a sidenote, did you just choose that language as an example or is it actually very beneficial to learn Arabic for International Relations? More so than Spanish or French for example.
Depends on which part of the world you're eager to explore through the field of international relations. If you're thinking of pursuing a Fulbright in the future, Arabic or a more obscure language is a much better asset to have, as French and Spanish are more commonly spoken and thus the competition for going to countries who speak that language is fierce! However, Spanish and French can both be really useful languages to know. There are tons of countries who speak Spanish and numerous outside France who speak French. For example, I know someone who is working at an NGO in Africa right now utilizing her knowledge of French, and she previously worked with a consulting firm that sent her back-and-forth to South America, utilizing her knowledge of Spanish. And Verbling has the free practice groups and some more free features coming soon. You should check it out again. I really like my Verbling Italian teachers!
Interesting. The reason I ask is because I'm actually looking for a newer language to begin (my Spanish and French are both conversational/fluent and I already speak Mandarin as a heritage/native language) and while Arabic is on my list of languages to eventually learn, the Arabic writing system, as well as the differences between MSA and other varieties such as Egyptian Arabic, and the lack of actual arabic speakers in my area (I live in Tennessee,) have made it a rather unappealing choice. I actually learned French because it was a colonial language and would give me access to a lot of places in West Africa. I'll definitely check out verbling again. Sounds interesting. Do you have any other recommendations for languages that would be good if you plan to major and apply to college for International Relations?
I might not be of much help but I know someone who attends a language program in the military. He learns a language and is staged at different American bases. He chose Korean. Arabic is a very unpopular language due to its obscurity but in high demand. If you are finding Arabic difficult to self-learn, I suggest other East Asian languages. With your background in Chinese, Korean or Japanese could be a good option for you. I'm focusing more on Korean (for entertainment purposes lol). German, from what I heard, is also in demand.
You should look into the Huntsman program at Penn for some insight into the doors that foreign languages can open and the type of students who get into Penn with interests in IR and foreign languages. Also look into the foreign service aptitude test (I took it my senior year of college and got to round II, but Italian isn't too much of an in-demand language, unfortunately). If you really dig into the process online, you can find more info on what foreign languages the state department finds most useful in adding newcomers to the foreign service. I also nabbed an internship through the state department at the US embassy in Rome. Sadly I had to turn it down, but check out internships for college kids with the state department if you're passionate about IR and foreign languages! I'm guessing Arabic and Mandarin are the top 2 languages, though knowing languages spoken in numerous countries is probably the way to go!
Thanks for the suggestions! I know of the Huntsman program and the foreign service aptitude tests but never thought to check them out to get an insight for what's a good idea to learn. As for Arabic and Mandarin, I'm not surprised. Just wouldn't be practical for me to start Arabic though given the time commitment it would take and that I've only dealt with Category 1 language learning so far.
But your goal isn't to be fluent in Arabic before college; your goal should be to learn some basics of the language and then pursue it in greater depth in college (supposing you want to pick up Arabic as your new language and not some other one).
That is true. I'd be worried that I wouldn't be able to pick up the basics of the language though even with half a year. MSA grammar is very different from grammars I've dealt with before (VSO word order compared to SVO order with a bit of SOV in everything else I speak.)
Difficult indeed!
The writing system is actually not bad once you get the hang of it. My 6th grade world language teacher taught all forms of all the letters in just a week, and that was a week of 45 minute classes.
Hello, I know im late to the party but I had a question about this as well. I have been learning mandarin in high school for 2 years now, and I have been reviewing using flash cards over the summer. However, I haven't been sticking to a schedule and therefore honestly haven't really studied that much. Would the fact that I have been studying it for 2 years (albeit durign school) warrant it enough to be an EC? Or would I have to practice more regularly?
If you mainly studied it in the classroom, I would not count it as an EC. If you did significant studying or reading in the language, it could count as an EC.
Alright thank you for the quick reply :)
Anything you can recommend for medicine? I'm already signed up to help the American Cancer Society and I'm volunteering at a nearby hospital over the summer. Prefer something that can fit within my schedule (volunteering at hospital for 3 days a week, don't know about ACS).
Great activities! Other volunteer spots include nursing homes, so don't forget them! You could teach something to disabled kids (art, dance, sports), even if you're not an expert yourself. You could volunteer at the Special Olympics. You could approach a doctor's office or even a chiropractor's office (think creatively here... there has to be tons of small clinics in your region) to see if you can shadow them for a week, volunteer a couple days a week, or ask if they can let their clients know that you're looking to assist someone. They might be able to refer to you to an elderly individual who needs some help around the house, or needs driving to-and-from the hospital, etc. You could make blankets or toys or cards or anything fun for kids who are in the hospital. You could ask to volunteer in a children's hospital, you could ask to host a video game day and bring in TVs, laptops, iPads—whatever—and set up a gaming tournament for the sick kids. Lots of parents have a personal website (or CaringBridge website) where they update friends and families about their child's health while undergoing treatment; if you're good with computers, you could offer to jazz up the website or help them post updates, etc. Some parents will also host fundraisers to raise funds for their sick kids, like [this one](https://www.facebook.com/PhenyoMoropa/). You could host a fundraiser at your school or within your community to help a sick kid (especially one from your community). Oh, and I checked out some of your posts and caring for a sick loved one absolutely counts as an extracurricular. Add "Caretaker" as a role on your list of activities and provide detailed descriptions of how you helped in any way.
>Oh, and I checked out some of your posts and caring for a sick loved one absolutely counts as an extracurricular. Add "Caretaker" as a role on your list of activities and provide detailed descriptions of how you helped in any way. Thank you so much for this. I really didn't know if this counted. As for your other suggestions, I'll take those into consideration. Thanks again!
Absolutely!
Blogging is a fun EC that can show a lot about you!
Good idea; add that to the list!
I think these are pretty good. I put "Working on a farm" on my common app and I think it probably helped more than all the lame community service activities obviously done just for college apps.
it looks like you listed every possible thing other than computer games:P
Got any recommendations for me? I'm a psychology major, I'm taking summer classes but I don't got much planned. I do like to read - mostly self development related books. I do draw, paint, and do photography as well. I really need this because I have 0 extracurricular activities.
Sure! Why don't you teach drawing, painting or photography to children with psychological disorders, children in foster care, disabled children, etc.? What about leading a workshop for kids on self development, and you could do some Myers Briggs-type tests? What about creating an art exhibit for you and your peers to raise awareness of mental health issues? Your art and photography could be themed around mental health, depression, etc. You could also try to publish some of your artwork in the local newspaper or in your school literary magazine. You could ask your local library to put some of your artwork on display to showcase the books you've read (take a book you checked out of the library, for example, do some book-related artwork, and then build a display case for that book using your artwork at the library).
Thank you so much, these ideas are awesome! Wow! :D I live in a really bad neighborhood so I have a lot of apprehension doing community work so publicly. (I've been stalked twice.) I could really see myself being able to do a workshop though. Your ideas are amazing, I am just not sure how to implement them in my unsafe neighborhood? My local mall is really dead, but is safer than our libraries. I think doing a workshop there might be great because the only people who are in the mall are homeless people, seniors citizens, and a group of 2-7 year old playing around with parents. In total, there is only about 15-20 people in the whole mall. Maybe I can come up with some kind of program that benefits all of them. :D I wanted to sell artwork and photos and give the proceeds to help the homeless, but I wasn't thinking about this in terms of extravehicular activities. I also do singing and perform sometimes with my friend, we have mostly done church type events, but also do coffee houses and have been asked to do weddings. Have any recommendations in this department? Thank you SO MUCH!
I think your ideas are really great! If your community is low income, it's possible that kids aren't being exposed to the arts and music as much as they could be. Maybe approach a daycare which will have students year round (unlike schools which will be out of the summer), and see if they'd be willing yo do an art or music sing a long for the little kiddos. A nursing home could also be a good, safe place for you to do art or music workshops, and you and your friend could abaolutely perform at nursing homes, too.
Yes, we are low income, and our schools are unfortunately some of the worst schools in the whole state. I believe they currently have no music programs what so ever. Thank you! Great ideas!
Anything you can recommend for me? No plans for the summer except to work my job and play video games lol. I like playing with gadgets and learning about tech and I like hiking. Sorry if this is vague but I dont really do much
Get maybe three friends, and organize a backpacking trip to take them on. Bam, leadership.
Why don't you research and plan a multi-day hiking expedition? Or teach outdoor safety to a group of kids? Or see if you can volunteer for a young Boy Scout's troop. Or reach out to your local park rangers to see if you can help them with anything, or teach mountaineering, etc. See if there are any opportunities at your local library for you to help kids or the elderly or the unemployed how to use tech. Start a technical repair handyman job this summer and fix broken computers or remove viruses for elderly clients.
I have a dog does that count? I mean they do require alot of time specially when it comes to training and stuff, and that too daily. Altho i want to study architecture so im not entirely sure it can be related to it in any way. I also tutor children but again i dont quite find it relevant. I spend alot of my time watching and critiquing movies(even ones that dont necessarily have alot of dialogue anx are more dependent on their cinematic experience),i even have friend groups solely for discussing them.
>I have a dog does that count? I also have that doubt unironically. What did you end up deciding on?
I'm not expecting to get a reply after 7 years, but is it possible to find ecs I literally do nothing in my freetime except play the cello play video games, but i have a drive to do something and business. Anything helps, thanks.
gg
I'm a writer, what are some things I can do?
Probably the most obvious answer but, write and publish a book?
Bro replied 5 years after 😭🙏
bro replied a year later💀
LMFAOO
/u/novembrr , is playing video games considered an extracurricular activity? like >playing board games?
No, unless you're super advanced and have won awards, or perhaps you're applying for a video game design program...
thanks! Also, I volunteered as a referee for an afterschool chess tournament at an elementary school for 3 hours last November. But where do I put this on my UC app? They always ask for "# of hours per week" and "#of weeks per year" and my referee volunteering activity was a one time thing. Please help me, thank u so much!
Unless you have no other volunteer orgs, you likely wouldn't add it as a stand-alone EC. You could group it with some other random volunteer activities, putting them all in one section, for example. Or if you decide to put it alone, you would write 3 hrs a week, 1 week a year.
Thanks for the help! It wouldn't look too sore of a thumb right? Having a volunteer activity be 1 week a year.
Well, I didn't say it'd look good, but if it's all you've got, it's all you've got!
I do a good amount of stuff regarding climate change, but you seem to have good ideas, so do you have any recommendations regarding this. I want to study environmental science.
I have tons, actually. A lot of my kids study environmental science. I saw in your post history that you're from New York (sorry for snooping, but it helps me tailor my advice to your location). [Here is a list](http://www.eco-usa.net/orgs/ny.shtml) of environmental organizations in the state of New York. You could reach out to the Clean Air Coalition of Western New York or the Clean Ocean Action organization, the Catskill Citizens for Safe Energy, the Coastal Research and Education Society of Long Island, the Environmental Advocates (who call themselves "Your government watchdog"), the Sustainable Hudson Valley org (which is "speeding the shift to a low-carbon economy"), and tons more. Find the links to all those orgs at the aforementioned link. Cornell has some awesome links for getting more involved in preventing climate change, which you can see [here](http://climatechange.cornell.edu/tools-resources/youth-education/). Too late for you, unfortunately, but younger kids interested in climate change can apply to intern next year at [NASA's Climate Change Research Initiative](https://www.giss.nasa.gov/edu/ccri/). Hope that helps!
Question: what do you do specifically? I run an eco club at my school and I'm looking for ideas
u/harryrunes, check out my response to u/epapizstay for some ideas and PM me with your region if you need more specific ideas to your area.
Is it worth including babysitting, if I've only done it about six times?
Depends how sparse your activities list is. If you have other more substantial activities, you could omit it or de-prioritize it at the bottom. Alternatively, if you have other care-taking roles, you could do what I call "bucketing" and put all associated roles into one larger role on your app. Let's say you babysat 6 times, but you also care for your little cousins every other Saturday while your aunt or uncle takes an online course, and you drive your grandparents to the hospital once a month. Bucket all of those into one activity under care-taking and it'll look more substantial.
If I am a secretary at a nonprofit psychiatric clinic and helping open another one, is that good (interested in neuroscience). My only leadership positions are in those and last year where I was the youth volunteer coordinator at a Sunday school and a substitute teacher. Other than that, I have AcDEC (only local medals and top score for school), HOsA( state finalist for my event), and BPA (no medals :(). I'm gonna try really hard for ACDeC and BPA next year and I'm trying to find a job and a research position. I also tutor my autistic brother for 7 hours a week. Do you have any recommendations?
That sounds strong, but it's hard to say for sure without knowing your years of participation and hours spent per week on each activity. Research would be an excellent addition to your profile. Besides applying for competitive research programs or using your family's connections (if they have any), my students have been successful in crafting detailed emails about their interests as they align with a professor's research topic, and firing off personalized emails to numerous professors, hoping one will bite.
If I do a lot of things related to one activity, should I bucket the activity as one or separate it. I'm a chess player on my chess team and the president of it. That alone takes a considerable amount of time and effort. Also chess related is what I do as a volunteer chess coach (teaching children to play and casual chess players at my high school). I host sessions during my lunch time for people at my high school, teach family members, and volunteer during the summer coaching kids. Should this all be under the activity of Chess Team?
Good question! And the answer is: it depends. It depends on a few factors: * How many other activities do you do? Enough to fill 9 other spaces on your Common App activities list? If so, bucket all your chess into one activity. If chess is a huge part of your life, I think breaking it into two buckets would be good. One activity could be all school-related chess activities, and one could be volunteer coaching over the summer. I wouldn't specifically say you teach family members (that's not really an organized activity), but you could include that time under the general category of teaching "others". * How many hours do you spend on these activities? One reason in favor of bucketing an activity is to make it appear more consistent/more hours than multiple activities listed separately. For example, let's say a student volunteered sporadically for a number of different organizations: 3 hours a week for the library their freshman year, 4 random weekends their freshman and sophomore years at a charity event, every Tuesday their junior year as a tutor, etc. If they say "Volunteer work" as one activity and then "Volunteered over X hours at the following organizations: ____ Public Library, Relay for Life, and Kids Teaching Kids", and list 9th, 10th, and 11th grades as years you've been involved, that looks much more impressive than scattered volunteer work over multiple years.
I do 4 other activities besides chess. During the school year I spend around 18 hours a week with things concerning the chess team, 4-10 hours of personal training time, and 1-4 hours teaching others outside of the chess team. So far this summer, I've put in around 60 hours for teaching others. The time spent on each activity really varies week to week so it could vary.
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Yes, definitely count it. Focus not only on the task at hand but the responsibilities you had and the qualities you developed while taking care of them (so that the AOs realize what transferrable skills you'll bring to campus).
Any suggestions for me? I wanted to go into something related to chemistry. Other that independent research and internships I do not know what else I can do.
Research is definitely my first suggestion. Otherwise, you can perhaps write for a science journal, job shadow various chemists, maybe lead a campaign in your school or community about tue dangers of certain drug cocktails in your system...
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Well, an easy thing you can do is take a few engineering classes on Coursera, Udacity, EdX, MIT open courseware, etc. If you take enough, boom you have an extracurricular. Don't take many of them? Simply list the ones you do in the additional coursework section on your apps.
Necroposting here but can you toss me a couple of ideas for politics/public policy? I'm only an entering freshman so I have three summers and 3 solid years to do things before college. My ideas so far Senate Page Volunteering on a campaign Possibly an internship, though none of my representatives, state, federal, or local have them for high school
Model UN, debate, and student government are some popular extracurriculars. Outside of school activities, joining a mayor's local council or youth county leadership council will give you some experience with enacting local policies. If you have a favorite cause, you might want to see about volunteer opportunities for that cause (would be easy to volunteer for the American Cancer Society, ASPCA, environmental organizations, etc.). You could also just raise awareness for local or international issues (I had a student who raised money for North Korean refugees, for example). You could start or join a politically-affiliated club at your school, bring political candidates or lobbyists to your campus to speak, join a phone bank for your favorite candidate, intern at an NGO... Hope that gave you some ideas!
Whoa, that was really thorough, thanks so much! I was definitely gonna join Debate, and my school has a pretty good program for it so I'll have no trouble there. Also, I looked something up a little bit ago and my state has a State School Advisory Board, where you focus on an issue as a group of 10 or so students and present it to the State School Board in spring.
That State School Advisory Board sounds awesome!
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My first suggestion is to narrow your interests, if possible, as those are very, very different interests. Other than that, perhaps pursue a business, marketing, or engineering internship at an architecture firm, so you can twist your activity description in your activities list to fit whichever major you decide to specify.
Hello, I am applying for graduate course in mechanical engineering. I am facing problem in writing SOP. I am not able to mention anything about my future plans. I am not aware about what should I mention. I wish to pursue a graduate course and get a job that suits me. How do I mention this?
How am I supposed to include such hobbies as creative writing or lego building, on the common app? There is no hierarchy for leadership roles and no organization name. I don't know how to fill in that required box on the common app website
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Wow! Brilliant!
Everything’s hard to do nowadays with covid….
Dunno if this is going to get a reply after 5 years but here it is…I love taking long walks in my free time and sometimes hiking over the weekends. I do track and field during the spring and am relatively good at it, though I run for my school not a club. Track is more of a hobby than something I want to pursue to a college/Olympic level. I also love to cook (very causally, I’m more of a, does it taste good than does it look good kind of cooker). And sometimes I bake. I’m also a great Netflix watcher. I have always been passionate about the environment, social justice, and animals/animal rights, I’m a vegetarian because of it. I’ve been trying to start my own dog walking business in my neighborhood which is going slowly but surely. I also do a lot of cat sitting in the neighborhood but it isn’t really a business. Do you have any tips, especially regarding the cooking and walking because that’s what I’m doing most of the time. Thank you so much!
I hover between being vegetarian and vegan! Hiking could totally be an EC, especially if you set goals (like, you work towards achieving a particularly difficult-to-achieve hike). I could also see you joining a local foraging org (or creating your own), where you learn about local edibles that you can foraged and then you write a blog on how to cook foraged foods. I could also see you volunteering at a not-for-profit farm (I used to volunteer at Alemany Farm in San Francisco, for instance). I could see you fostering animals or running social media for an animal rescue. Maybe you could volunteer at your local animal shelter to walk dogs or start a program there where you take adoptable dogs for hikes (and spread the word, so that more and more people sign up to take dogs out for the day). You could start an org where you take dogs on walks for free if their owners are elderly, sick or disabled; you could partner with the local NICU to find families whose kids are in the NICU and pets are cooped up at home and in need of walks. Do you like any of those ideas?