Scared for junior year, scared I'm not doing anything impactful
I'm a rising junior in high school and school starts in September and I'm super worried. Junior year is the year where it counts in terms of college admissions. In freshman year, I did two sports so I didn't have time for a bunch of clubs and such. I quit one of my sports sophomore year and was able to do more clubs and have leadership positions for those clubs, and do additional extracurriculars like a "passion project" (which for me is game development, although calling it a passion project makes it seem like its only for college apps, when I really am passionate about making games). I also joined a couple of youth organizations and I plan on doing a part time job.
My main concern is that I can say for certain I've done more than 10 extracurriculars (which is the max amount you can put when applying to college), but I'm scared I haven't done anything impactful with them (with the exception of maybe 1-3 extracurriculars). I don't know how kids are able to have a nonprofit that raises like thousands of dollars or a passion project that gets hundreds of thousands of viewers. I can say most, if not all of my extracurriculars are related to my passions (tech, art, and the intersection of the two) but I feel like none of them have this like large impact with 10,000+ views or shares that people like to brag about on their college apps.
In short, I'm worried that even though I'm passionate about my extracurriculars, I feel like some of them aren't impactful enough to be noteworthy when applying to college. Any advice?
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2 answers
Hello!
I'm a high school senior and hope to give you some advice. Colleges see any extracurriculars as important. No matter if they don't seem impactful or noteworthy, it shows you're connected to your community, can work with others, and it helps you stand out compared to others who haven't taken any extracurriculars. I think you have a good chance of getting into a lot of colleges from around the globe with all the things you've done. Keep up the good work.
All the best wishes,
Paige
You don't have to have 1M followers, or a hundred thousand views for your projects/extracurriculars to be important to admissions officers.
They don't expect you to do that, and if you do get 10k views that's great! But that's not necessary, admissions officers look at your extracurriculars to see if you are actually passionate about the major/career path that you're trying to get into. They look at them to see if you've done anything else to further your learning and experiences outside of the classroom. If you have done multiple extracurriculars and you were passionate about them, that's more than enough! There are people who get into college without having extracurriculars.
Don't worry, you'll be just fine. Wishing you lots of luck!
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