hi everyone welcome back to my channel if you don't know me i'm jyothi i am a student at harvard and i make videos every now and then about the college application process i have made videos previously on the common application personal statement and in dealing with standardized tests and this video is going to be about extracurriculars so in terms of writing about it in your extracurricular section and about integrating your extracurricular activities into your essays whether it's your supplemental essays or even your comment at personal statement now before i get right into the video i
want to remind you all to please subscribe and hit the notification bell if you want to stay updated every time i make a new video also if you like my content be sure to give this video a big thumbs up and comment down below if you have any suggestions for future videos if you have any other questions and anything else you'd like to say definitely make sure to comment one more thing i actually recently started a podcast called light bulb moment through the organization i started a few years ago called think steam which is dedicated
to empowering women in stem or steam um but lipo moment my podcast is featuring interviews with me and women in stem media and entrepreneurship we have some familiar faces to youtube like ijustine and sarah dietschy uh i also got to interview jessica mayer who is a nasa astronaut part of the first all-female spacewalk which is really cool to talk to her about and some other videos and some other really great women as well i do talk about like applying to college and navigating college whether it's just cs or as a student in general so if
you're interested in the content i make in my youtube channel i definitely recommend checking my podcast out if that is a medium that you're interested in and without further ado let's get into the video so i'm going to start off this video by talking about what i think is the most objective way that colleges might look at your extracurricular activities and this is with the rating system that harvard uses that i'm assuming other schools might use something similar to but um of course as some of you might know harvard has been going through a lawsuit
previously in terms of affirmative action part of what they released was actually how they look at students applications uh including their rating system with categories like extracurricular extracurricular category academic personal and in athletic category um i'm just going to focus on the extracurricular category for this video because it's about extracurriculars if you want to hear me talk about the harvard admissions file process and looking through that overall comment that down below and i can make a different video on that as well um i prefer extracurriculars over all the categories actually they rate you from one
to six one being the best six being the worst i will say though that rarely anyone ever gets a one even harvard students that get in like that are admitted um i say that most harvard students that are admitted are like two plus two or two minus in that range uh so that's probably where you'd want to aim of course if you want to aim for being a one go go for it um but most students who get in are like two plus two or two minus um but for the extracurricular category specifically what i
noticed is that like what separates a one versus a two versus three versus a four and then all of course all the pluses and minuses is not just the extracurricular activities you do but the scope of it so if you have any honors in an extracurricular activity it has a larger weightage if it's like an international recognition versus a national recognition or a state recognition or a region or a local recognition um so that is definitely something that has a decent value um it is also noted that they do highly value um elected positions like
if you're class president or vice president or have a position like that where someone else voted you into that position um they do mention that that is in like the two category which is very high up so if that's something you're interested in doing or already have done definitely highlight that in your application and i guess how i kind of demonstrated this in my application um of course i didn't know too much about this whole rating system when i was applying but um i definitely tried to focus on like taking my skills and like demonstrating
it and some type of like national international skill um one thing that i'm really interested in even still is app development so i develop ios apps and i've published two apps the app store um but for in high school i actually applied to be a scholar for apple's worldwide developers conference and i applied and i was one of like 350 scholars out of like thousands worldwide to be selected as a scholar um so that's an international recognition that i mentioned okay so now that that's out of the way i guess we can get to my
personal tips on what i think you all should focus on with your extracurricular activities so tip one i would make sure that you all have activities that you have committed to from ninth through twelfth grade or for as much time in high school as possible just to show that this is something you're really interested in and something you're like extra committed to right um so for me that was app development which is started in eighth grade and continued all throughout high school from ninth through twelfth grade and also my nonprofit organization think steam and that
i continued from 9th to 12th grade as well and even continued into college with other initiatives like the podcast that i mentioned earlier on in this video um but yeah the main idea is that these were activities that i was really focused on a lot throughout high school and did from start to finish although i will say that there are some exceptions to the idea that you should like prioritize activities that you spent most of your time doing in high school because of course some of you who do like research if you spend a whole
summer on that that's a lot of work but you only spent one summer let's say i'd still try to highlight that on the top of your application especially if it's something that you would want to continue into college and something you might even consider pursuing as a career that's important to include in the top of your application also if you have an elected position like president or vice president or treasurer or something like that even if it's not for a long amount of time i would still recommend putting that towards the top of your application
especially since i mean harvard at least mentioned in their rating system that they do value like elected official positions highly okay so tip number two i would recommend that you make a story out of your extracurricular activities and by doing this i mean like if there's any specific major really interested in or just any specific career path that you'd want to pursue in the future i would choose an extracurricular that's related to that to the best of your ability and pursue that and show that this is something you're actually trying to explore and see if
you're really interested in so for example for me at least i am really interested in computer science and i have been author at high school and i wanted to explore this interest so i pursued app development and i pursued research in computer science and i also had my non-profit organization that wasn't directly me advancing my own interest in stem but it was me teaching other other individuals other girls about stem and steam so that also shows that not only am i pursuing my own interests in computer science but i'm also learning how i can further
my impact in computer science to the best that i possibly can which is very important um but yeah so this is what i chose to do for my interest in cs i know people who are interested in you know international relations and government who did model un in high school which is also really cool um so i think that that is really important to explore your own future interests somehow through extracurricular activities that brings me to tip number three which has to do with structuring your extracurricular activity section um i think the main question that
everyone's wondering too is like do i need to fill up every spot and the comment app for extracurricular activities and the answer is no you do not you not need to have 10 extra extracurricular activities that you need to fill up i know people that have gone to schools like harvard and stanford that have only had like four or five and ended up being totally okay for them but i will say that it's important how you order those extracurricular activities so you want to put the most important ones on the top for how and just
structure that on how long you spent with the activity in high school how many hours per week you spent on that activity uh what you've done with that activity and how much you really have to show to prove that this is something you're interested in whether it's related to your major any other interests you have that you feel are important to convey to the application readers and just different stuff like that that's what you want to consider so for me of course i put think steam and nonprofit on top with app development i also put
debate towards the top of my uh extracurricular section because that is something i spent four years of high school doing and something that shows that i'm not just interested in stem itself but i'm interested in how just like the world works and how stem might intersect with other sectors in other parts of the world um and it's also something to show that i'm interested in liberal arts as well uh which i am and it's part of why i chose harvard um so i think that that's really important also keep in mind that the extracurricular section
of the common app is where you want to really show exactly what you've done with these extracurriculars and any awards you might have won or any other actions that you might have taken that had some type of impact or whatever you need to show to prove that this is something you're actually really interested in something you're really thriving in any leadership positions you've had this is the place to do it in this extracurricular section specifically so i definitely would not recommend putting any awards or highlighting like a whole list of awards that you want for
some specific activity let's say in your essays because that doesn't really show your personality too well or it might not show your personality as well as you could otherwise um save that for the extracurricular section and in the essay just mention the backstory behind everything turn your extracurricular activity into a memo memoir and talk about why this specific activity is important enough to you that you want to mention it in this essay because you only have so much space to talk about what's important to you to college application readers so yeah that's pretty much it
for this video i hope you liked this video i hope you learned something from it i hope that this helps you out with dealing with your extracurricular activities for your college applications as always if you have any other questions or want to say anything else make sure to comment down below like this video if you do think you've learned something i'd really appreciate it and don't forget to subscribe and hit the notification bell alright see ya
