Myth: Not all activities are created equal

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Today’s Lesson: Your extracurriculars are valuable, no matter what they may be.

Myth: Colleges look for very specific activities on applicants’ resumes. Colleges love sports captains, no wait they love editor in chief of newspapers and yearbooks, no that’s wrong, they love student council presidents, no don’t be silly they love NHS treasurers, no, TV told me they love mouthy poorly dressed show-choir divas.  

Truth: They love all of these things and more.

Really, its not about what clubs you’re in, its about what you do in your clubs.

Any activity, no matter how silly or obscure can look impressive with commitment and good explanations.

The best way to make an activity look good on a resume is to have a high level of commitment to it. Join clubs your freshman year and stay with them for four years. If a club or team is only available after a certain number of years (maybe a group can’t be joined till sophomore year) note this in your explanations of the activity.

Do your best to become an officer. The size of your school will be taken into account with these things. If you’re in a school with 50 students in your graduating class there will be more expectation of officer positions than if there are 500. If for whatever reason you cannot become an officer, stay highly involved. Head up projects or events. An official title will look great, but its really the work that admissions are looking for. 

Just a reminder: List your responsibilities in the club on your resume.

If a club is difficult to explain or not easily explained from the title, make sure to clarify exactly what the club is.
It’s not that colleges prefer yearbook or sports to stranger clubs, they’re probably just a little confused about exactly what your club does and what your role is.

For example…

Your biggest activity in your high school is that you founded and are president of the “Table Top Troupe.”
If your resume simply states:

“Table Top Troupe, President/Founder, 10 hrs/wk, Freshman-Senior”

The person reading your resume is not going to learn anything or understand the high level of commitment you have to the club.

A better way to explain is:
Table Top Troupe (board and card game club). President/Founder, 10 hrs/week, 4 yrs

• Founded club aimed at collecting and teaching classic and modern board and card games.

• Grew membership from 10 members freshman year to 70 senior year

• Responsible for researching popular new table top games and running polls to gauge club interest in purchasing and adding games to the club library.

• Started fundraisers and budgeted for new games

• Developed and ran a Clue tournament as a yearly Halloween activity for the local Boys and Girls Club

That creates a much better picture of what your “silly little” club really is.

It shows that you came up with an idea, made it a real thing, helped it grow, and had some community service in there too.

Of course, you should join more than one club, but club membership is a balance.

You’re much better off having a high commitment in two or three clubs than joining ten and hardly showing up for them.

Colleges need table top gamers in addition to their sports captains.
Every single one of your activities  is valuable, as long as you are active in them.