Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Leadership in school club/team is considered average for ivies

No, it gets you a score of 2 out of 5, where 3 is average.

So what would be a three?

Anonymous wrote:- Any Honor Society with leadership roles - NHS, Spanish, French, Math, Science...
- Any SAT based honor - NMS - Semi-finalist, recommended scholar
- Any school recommended honor - Presidential scholars etc
-Any sports in which you have not excelled and played at V level or had won championships
-Any community service that is not transformative and unique - so all the soup kitchen meal making, playing piano of old people, tutoring disadvantaged kids, making cards for cancer patients, making blankets for animal shelters....
- Any musical instrument playing

Unless you are hooked or rich/networked. Then these things are gold.

Only the bolded are ECs.

Anonymous wrote:Leadership in school club/team is considered average for ivies

No, it gets you a score of 2 out of 5, where 3 is average.

College Vine website does a good job in telling you what your ECs are like for any activity - low, average, great, exceptional.

- Any Honor Society with leadership roles - NHS, Spanish, French, Math, Science...
- Any SAT based honor - NMS - Semi-finalist, recommended scholar
- Any school recommended honor - Presidential scholars etc
-Any sports in which you have not excelled and played at V level or had won championships
-Any community service that is not transformative and unique - so all the soup kitchen meal making, playing piano of old people, tutoring disadvantaged kids, making cards for cancer patients, making blankets for animal shelters....
- Any musical instrument playing

Unless you are hooked or rich/networked. Then these things are gold.

I’m very interested in this thread as DD has low EC’s at the moment. She gets tutoring twice/week, has one outside activity, and hasn’t joined a single club at school. She says none of them sound good. I’m trying to explain to her that she needs to do something.

All I can te so far is that for any given level of selectivity, there is a level of ECs that is sub-par, a level that is neutral, and a level that helps your application compared to others applying at that level.

I don’t know what that is for different schools, and I especially don’t know how to communicate to DD (10th grade) that while I want her to follow her interests, she needs to be interested in something.

Leadership in school club/team is considered average for ivies

Imagine a school club that has let's say weekly meetings. There are kids who show up to some of the meetings, but most people in the club are not exactly sure who they are. There are kids who show up every week, everyone knows them and they have lots of fun doing whatever it us that club is doing. And then there are kids who will be known by the club members long after they've graduated from HS. They will be the legends of the club because they came, they did something for that club that fundamentally affected the experiences of the members for generations, and they left it a much better place.

So, the club is an EC. Now imagine how these different types will describe their involvement on the college apps, even though it's the same EC. Here is your poor-average-good.

My kid had average EC’s

Two years Mission Trip and Fundraising
One year entrepreneur / self employed
One year softball
One year yearbook
No leadership roles
Still got into several T50s

My kid had what I consider average ECs-
JV then V Soccer
FBLA
Different community service each year
NHS

Anonymous wrote:Nobody knows, really.

Just asking for individual opinion. Okay they will vary.

Nobody knows, really.

On a team but not captain or varsity letter
No leadership roles
No jobs or heavy volunteering

Average: sports team, long term volunteering or job, clubs with some level of leadership

When providing stats (which is super helpful - thanks!), many people say their DC had “average” ECs. What does that mean to most people? Welcome examples (they don’t need to be real). Just want a sense of poor-average-good ECs.