Unique & Outstanding Extraciriculars

Does your school have a business academy, model UN, student government program or something similar? If you're not sure, I'd suggest looking into it as that's what many of my friends interested in business have done. Try job shadowing or get a internship/job in an area of interest for you.

I would say it depends greatly on the majors you are interested on exploring or field of work you see yourself in, but generally it is more impressive to start your own {insert topic of interest} club/society/company/non-profit/web-site/blog than adhering to ones already offered at your school/town. T25 colleges care a lot about your abilities as a leader, and so you have to show them that you are capable of stepping out of your comfort zone (aka what already exists), and creating something new. When I was a freshman, for example, I started my own Girl Up Club, which was the only one in my coutry, and gathered a team, which since (that country is Ukraine) undertook lots of volunteer work and raised thousands for the civilians and the military involved in the current conflict, I started a blog, a magazine, and a state-wide inline-skating club. It is still important though not to forget using the resources available to you, such as the clubs in your school. MUN, Mock Trial, and Student Government are all good options, and what's even better is that you can find all of these fully online, which in my case was extremely helpful, as I am homeschooled. I can recommend MUN Impact, for example, for Model United Nations debates and conferences that are all completely free (seriously, all you have to do is sign up and show up), and there is also the prospect of advancing into the organizational team of the project, which is where I am currently. Making use of what is available shows colleges that you do not take what is given to you for granted, and take advantage of every opportunity present. If you are aiming for T25, however, that alone is just not enough. I have seen students denied from their dream schools, just for lack of leadership roles, and I would definitely suggest (for a Business/Engineering major especially) that you start your own company (this can be as easy as creating an instagram page and selling whatever it is you hobby to make or create - this can tie up your extracurricular resume nicely, demonstrating both your business rigor, and another, more personal side of your interests and hobbies), another option is a non-profit, and I actually came up with an idea that is connected both to leadership and engineering, although it is somewhat complex: you could create a club at your school that, through fundraising and volunteer work, raises awareness and aids the efforts of a local non-profit (one that deals with the problems of sustainable city planning and works on developing housing for the homeless and needy) or your local natural disaster relief center with pretty much the same purpose. You could speak to middle-schoolers on the importance of the matter, and gather money that will actually make a difference in the world (apart, of course, from being that spike you wanted for your application). Apart from this, you could take the appropriate aps for business/engineering, and if you are interested a few online college-level courses from coursera (they have finantial aid, and courses with actual certificates from the T25, how cool is that?), thus showing colleges how serious you are investing your time and efforts into academic. Ok, that's it for today, thank you for reading my Ted talk.

In my opinion, developing your spike/theme early will be easiest for you to set yourself up when writing your essays as a senior. When I was developing my spike/theme, I brainstormed everything I was extremely passionate about. When I say passionate, I mean things that I think about all day, or things that I could spend all day doing. While I unfortunately didn't go this route because I started too late, looking back, cooking, eating disorders, and overall health are all things I'm very passionate about. If I were to do something out of this, I would combine it with another interest of mine, like writing and cooking wholesome meals, and I would have started food blogging and making a cookbook.

So many people start non-profits, so I would only pursue that route if you can do something truly unique and something that no one else is doing.

For activity ideas for you, I want you to come up with 10 things you value most. Then, I want you to come up with 5 things you could do all day, or 5 skills or general hobbies. From there, you can curate more specific ideas that play into a larger theme and are also much more unique.

Here are a few of my extracurriculars for reference:

I started a campaign to bring awareness to the importance of childhood literacy

I started a non profit to bring youth accessible business and career exploration resources

I am developing an app to provide people struggling with an eating disorder with free chatting with other people with an eating disorder

I hope this helps! I can help you think of more activity ideas once I get more context from you!