Want to read about these activities instead of watch? Check our blog: supertutortv.com/college/activities-that-do-impress-colleges-own-the-college-admissions-process/

2 types of people in these comments: 1: I'm 8 years old and I won 529 national writing contests, am the leader of 6496396396258296369470 clubs in my school, started an NGO to eliminate ebola, did research on the metastasis of breast cancer, scored the world record for the fastest mile ever run by a woman, played the violin at Carnegie hall in front of Barrack Obama, went on a mission trip to Africa and single-handedly built 25 schools, got a 5 on every single AP test, and have a 11.0 GPA. Will any of this help me get into college?? I am freaking out, please help!!! 2: I am on Level 80 in Candy Crush, will that get me into Harvard?

If everyone's a leader then who leads who????

I'm really good at playing the recorder with my nose

I’m really good at not knowing what I’m good at

this applies to like 3% of kids. like wtf am i supposed to tell colleges? that i like to eat and sleep?

Here are some ideas 💡: -Internship (paid/not paid) -Sports -Charities -Food Drives/Can food drives -Visiting homeless centers to help -Dog Protection/Animal Protection -Charities -Starting a club that helps people like suicide prevention clubs -Summer jobs or having a job in general -*Wow Factor* like being President it Valedictorian or winning awards or writing a bomb poem/novel or learning a language or traveling abroad to help others

i'm excellent at failing, does that work? pls

I’m a better rapper than lil pump. Is it enough to get me into Harvard?

One thing I can say: everything she mentioned requires tons and tons of money for the rest of us living outside the US

This is why being a student for me is hard. 1. I have tried so many sports and activities when I was a kid, but was never really passionate about any of them. I'm going to be a junior in high school and I still haven't settled on a sport that I enjoy. 2. I have no time! How do colleges expect me to have time to sleep when I have to work, have 3 AP classes, and if I was doing anything extracurricular??? 3. In terms of leadership, since I'm a pretty introverted and person who doesn't like to stand out much and has anxiety in social situations, it is the scariest thing to be a leader. I feel like I'm not good enough! 4. I'm good at art, but the thing is my school only offers a regular art class and an AP Art class, which I've both taken already! I have no art classes left and I don't have a chance to chase my talent. I was considering a summer camp but corona virus, also their expensive, and most things one are also pretty expensive. In my town there really isn't any art related extracurriculars so I'm kinda stuck. :/ 5. My school dangles college over our heads like it's a humongous beast or something - they act as if it's the end of the world. Sure, it's hard, but you don't have to scare me!!! They expect us to know a passion by 17 (which is how old when I'll graduate) and I still don't know. 6. School and colleges expect everyone to be social butterflies and be great communicators, business people, and yada yada. Sure, this is great but it's really hard when being an introvert. I can't even walk up to a teacher and say hi to them so how am I expected to lead??? 7. Grades. Time consuming, stressful, and difficult to manage, even without any extra curriculars. Any of you agree?

The activities part has to be the thing that most terrifies me...

1. Leadership 2. Excellence 3. Commitment 4. Wow factor conclusion: not getting into college

Got some victory royales. How would Harvard feel?

It makes me sad that colleges are expecting teenagers to know exactly who they are and what they’re passionate about and be the best at it. Teens should be spending time finding their identities. Also a lot of teens go through personal things that can affect their mental health, Or have commitments for their families. Do those students not get to go to these colleges because they don’t have the time to spend on activities ?

This is the best advice I've seen on the internet when it comes to activities. Colleges constantly say that they are trying to put together a diverse class, and it is so much easier to contribute to this by doing activities no one else does instead of trying to be the best in the world at something. I strongly believe that the weirder and more unusual your activities are, the better chance you have to stand out as an interesting applicant and ultimately get in. That was the logic I used on my Stanford application and I think it's a big part of why I got in. :)

Welp guess I won't be going to college.

Can I just say that it’s sad that kids have to jump through hoops in order to get into college...I guess being a teenager with good grades is not good enough. SMH

-GPA: 4.0 -Rank: 3 out of 579 students -Graduated 2014 and then enlisted -Worked my butt off to write an essay about my military career and how i would fit well into the program. *Still got declined admission at a state university* As per the school, I was rejected because I graduated 4 years ago and dont have recent academic records.

uhh yeah i guess college just isn’t happening haha wow worked my ass off and i’m still not enough woo hoo !!

i can do a "disappointing factor"....LMFAOO

I'm masters in overwatch does that count as excellence

Lol I don’t think being the best blunt roller at the school is gonna wow Yale

I'm doing none of this. I'm gonna find my own way.

Wow factor has me stressed yall

When she talked about being good at violinist, I froze because I think I found my ticket

Im the best at procrastinating and watching KZfaq videos instead of studying will that help me get into harvard

U r 100% right on the definition of leadership

My school is dumb and pushes people to take 4 AP classes every year, participate in volunteer work, sports, and multiple clubs because they claim that that's what colleges look for. Then everybody does that because they don't know any better and they end up burning themselves out before they can even go to college. It's nice to know that all of that was complete BS and that all of us wasted our high school careers due to their negligence and laziness. (Even though they still yelled at us for being lazy even if we did the work.)

i’m really good at stressing out about things, which i was reminded of while watching this video

normally, i can't stand watching videos related to college applications and all, but the videos from this channel are kind of addicting

Thank u for speaking up for Asians.

Your channel is so helpful!! I'm a junior in high school and have been using your videos to help guide me for years. Love what you do!

being an international student sucks, my school doesnt offer any extracurricular activities and i dont know what to do to improve my curriculum

this video made me thank myself once again for starting and developing a business to a successful business as a freshman honestly it wouldve been so hard to get into my dream college without it

Being successful in extracurriculars is important I get it but sometimes being pushed to hard to be successful at something just takes away your "interest" part out of it as most people do it as a refuge from the competition that they face and just want to enjoy themselves it just hurts that just doing something that you like and not going to any competition or trying to be at the top doesn't mean anything to the admissions committee.

Brooke, it would be awesome if you could make a video giving tips for college interview! I appreciate your work, and your videos have been helping me a lot during my application process. I'm having no guidance through the process, but the information you and other people give on KZfaq helped me more than I would imagined, so thank you very much!

I can do a really amazing whale mating call on the clarinet? Can I get into Harvard???

I’ve always been an arts kid - I’ve always been extremely involved in my school’s theatre, writing, and music programs and have excelled in these classes. While I am passionate about these things, I am equally passionate about science and math; thus, I am applying to colleges as a nursing major (with a theatre minor, possibly. My parents only support that because they believe it is equivalent to a major in interpersonal communication). I’ve never failed a science/math class, but they’ve never been my best classes either. I joined chem club at the beginning of freshman year, but I quit because it wasn’t a productive use of my time. I’m more interested in health/biological sciences, so I never joined the robotics club or any other science/math-oriented club at school. I’m planning on taking five years of math and science (extra credits w/summer courses in stats and possible human anatomy). I’m worried that my involvement in arts over science will confuse college admissions and make them think I’m not really interested in nursing/health sciences. What can I do to persuade them that I really care about pursuing a career in nursing, but also that my passion for nursing won’t make me let go of the fine arts anytime soon?

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you! You guys gave me a little bit more direction, which is saying a lot. Its a bit of hope, and i am absolutely thankful for it

The best thing about you is that you are are very genuine and honest:)

in terms of wow factor, sometimes it's the combination of things that makes the wow. Example: a colleague of mine had a student who was good at crew (good, not amazeballs), but that wouldn't have been enough for a wow in the Ivy pond. However, he also break dances. And it turns out that the combo crew-break dancing is pretty wow. Another example is a student with whom I worked who both did speedcubing (solving Rubik's cubes fast) and played baseball (well, but not amazingly well).

This lady is so much on point in all her videos.

This gave me a lot en enthusiasm like...I SEE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

I had literally no time between full time work and full time cc to do extra curricular activities. But I have worked teaching developmentally disabled how to live in community group homes for nearly ten years. Got me into UT Austin in the Natural Sciences. Not a bad school if I may say so.

Go class of 2019! These vids are great to prepare :) I will be visiting UPenn on monday - can’t wait!

Thank you so much for this video , I would try my best to put your advice to good use , thank you again!

Thank you thank yo thank you!!!! Its that time that i need to start planning all these things

sorry, i have depression and can't find anything interesting anymore.

Do your extracurriculars have to do with your major or can they be different. For example is it okay if you spend all four years of high school participating in art clubs but your major being nursing? Do colleges want to see a relationship between them or it doesn't matter because you can put undefined for your major so they won't know? Btw I like both art and nursing but I participated in art only and just decided I want my major to be nursing?

Linguistics is how I showed uniqueness and passion.

Thank you so much! I think I know what my wow factor is!

For the longest time I have enjoyed drawing floor plans of like houses and buildings for like no absolute reason, but at the same time I don’t want to necessarily go into architecture for college😂

College interview video please!

Thank you, I found this video very helpful

I love this! thank you

I know that mayonnaise is an instrument and I can play it.. Does it help for college admissions?

Your videos are very helpful so could you please make one for students from abroad who are looking to apply to American colleges

Thank you for this!

Awesome video . Very informative 👍

How developed should an entrepreneurial activity be? As a high school student I can't do much in terms of starting my own business but I do have a sort of baking and makeup business so would that count as something or would it just look stupid ?

Wow, the self study project on epidemiology based off of Twitter data in high school...

thank you so much!! That helped a lot

Great video, this gave me confidence in my ECs lol. I dont have a lot but theres like 2 that I spend a lot of time on

This video is very helpful! I am currently playing violin in a mariachi group! I've been playing since I was 10. :D

I am currently a junior in high school and need some extracurricular advice(I want to attend an Ivy League school). Here is what I have so far, but I’m not sure how good I stand out. I break up my extracurriculars into 3 main categories: choir, environmental activism, and programming/machine learning. Choir: I have been doing choir since 6th grade and in high school my achievements grew every year. 9th grade: I made it to round 3 out of 4 in the Texas All State Choir Audition process and performed in the annual region choir. I also got a 1(highest rating possible) in my local solo contest. 10th grade: All of the above and in addition, I achieved the Outstanding Performer Award in the Texas State solo contest. This award is given to the top 3% of competitors. 11th grade: I am currently on the 4th and final round of the All State Choir process(an improvement from the last 2 years). Evaluating the best possible outcome, let’s say I make it. I’m thinking of competing in the Hal Leonard vocal solo competition(national) this second semester. Environmental activism: In freshman and sophomore years, I have done small things like volunteering for my local Biodiversity center and partaking in programs for teens there. My passion was there, but I just didn’t know what I wanted to do with it. junior year: I won first place in an annual international environment essay contest sponsored by the UN and Samsung. Over 240 people entered from 46 countries. The topic was combating air pollution. This last month, I entered another international writing contest sponsored by the Trust for Sustainable Living, where I shared my platform on how smarter tech choices in first world countries can satisfy the UN global goals(climate action). Results will come in Feb. Around the same time I entered the UN contest, I discovered the sustainable search browser Ecosia which plants trees with its ad revenue. I researched and found out that there was a movement in Europe led by college students to make Ecosia the default browser in their campuses. I contacted the leader of the movement(in Great Britain) and received a unique link to start a campaign where I live(catered to primary and secondary schools and communities) and hopefully expand nationally. This is my nonprofit, Trees for Tomorrow. It’s very small right now, but hopefully I can grow it within this year! Programming/machine learning: I really want to pursue a degree in machine learning because I love working with data and want to tackle environmental issues head on. I’ve taken comp sci related classes every single year of HS. In freshman year, one of my comp sci projects made it to the regional science fair. In addition, this past summer I’ve taken a class on Python online from Georgia Tech, and currently doing one on Machine Learning from the University of Michigan. Afterwards, I intend to compete in the online website Kaggle(specializes in Data science) and even get an internship at Match.com(my dad’s company) for data science this coming summer. What do you think of this? I’m worried that I don't have a solid spike(environmentalism really took hold this year), and I’m worried about choir because many have said that it’s not a good EC. I also don’t have that many awards- if I have 2 state awards and maybe 2 international in the near future, would that would be good for Ivy League? What else do you think I can do to enhance my profile? I finished 3 AP courses, and I’m taking 6 right now(because my school only offers either AP or on level classes). I have mostly high A grades on my transcript. My ACT score is 35, and I’m going to take subject tests math 2 and physics this summer. Thank you, Swetha Tandri

I'm a sophomore working to obtain an Associates Degree through a selective program while in high school. I also am working for EMT certification by the conclusion of Junior Year. This Is all the "Wow" I got.

The video editing is immaculate😌

Hi Brooke, it would be amazing if you can make a video giving tips for students who transfer to American high schools mid-way from foreign countries (like during their sophomore or junior year) because this is really a struggle for students like me who never get the chance to start preparing for college in 9th grades or even earlier in terms of academics, extra curriculars, test prep, etc.

the 4 attributes: leadership excellence commitment wow-factor

Very helpful video. Thanks 😄

Good video. Strong advice.

Question, I play a sport and I've been playing it for a long time, I play against college kids and kids who are on a college sports team and do okay for the age gap. Would this activity help me get into a college?

So all of this means that I’m not getting into any college 👏🤓

Thank you for your video

could you do a video on what activities would be good to exceed in (if your starting at a later age so grade 9 or 10)

I have just completed the Officer Cadet School and I am now a full commissioned officer in the Singapore Armed Forces...do I qualify as having leadership qualities.

I'm not sure whether this is considered an excellence activity, but I was really interested in art, so I applied to be the artist for a magazine club at school and got accepted. A couple months later, I applied to be the creative director by drawing some art for an article and got selected to be the director, so now I take care of a bunch of artistic elements. My question is is this whole thing an excellence activity or a leadership activity?

As a junior in high school, I was the Asb class president and I was deemed as the captain of my baseball team. All these titles aside, I want to make a few things clear. My school’s team finished 5-20, and I had a batting average of 0.260 (which is mediocre in high school). While I was named captain by my coach, the players on my team didn’t seem to have much respect for me, rarely taking me seriously. While I was able to get things done in my Asb junior class, I had difficulties managing differing opinions in my classes. I don’t think I was nearly assertive enough, and often times, I myself fell confused in my position. This doesn’t sound like I am much of a leader. There must be some sort of legitimacy in my roles, and an underlying leadership quality that I possess that allowed me to assume these roles during high school, but I don’t see it in myself that these titles bear much importance. Why? Well, I don’t see much self improvement from being in my associated student body (still awkward in social situations, still lack assertiveness) and I don’t see improvement on my baseball skills, being an average at best player. I also don’t know where I will apply these things in the real world. I don’t mean to pout: I only want to point out that I may have placed my investments in the wrong place and that you should be very careful before attempting activities that will simply boost your college acceptance rates. That was not my intention. Rather, I believed that by doing these things I was making a positive change. But I only found interests in the last couple years, in which showing mastery is very difficult. The solution: know why you are putting such a great investment of time in to an activity before you continue

Conflict management is the #1 activity.

Do you think that excelence in choir would help as much as for instruments? I scored the top score for tenor voice at Jazz All State in my state and top in my room (essentially top in the state) for tenor voice for two years in a row at my state's regular All State. I also went to All Nationals last November. I just want to know if this will suffice for excelling in an extracurricular. Thanks, and have a good day!

I'm definitely into the more exotic stuff, like the language of Icelandic, the hammered dulcimer, and glassblowing

Hi Brooke, I really hope you reply to my comment. So I love going to the gym after school and working out. Not just to work out, but because I love it and I love taking care of myself. Do you think I can use that as an extracurricular activity?

What do you think about fostering cats? The shelter I volunteer at lets minors foster with parental permission, and I’m finally able to get my parents permission in my senior year.

Do you have to be excellent only in activities related to your major or can it be other activities?

I'm really great at quickscoping skrubs in call lf of duty. Is there even a minute chance i may get admitted in any US college?

Can activities you have done in middle school also help you get into university (considering they are good enough and are part of the things universities are looking for) ?

For my wow factor I might get a satisfied “hm” does that count?

What if I have a leadership position in a youth group.....does that count?

is remembering 6000 digits of pi a wow factor and commitment?

This depresses me, I’m not a high school student I’m a 27 year old who went back to school. Next year I’ll be applying to colleges as a community college transfer and after watching this I feel like I’m not going to appear as a contender.

Hi! I hope you are able to see this, because I was wondering if colleges care if you have credit from a pre-college credit program or not? Thank you so much!

how about ability to speak generally 9 languages including 5 fluently? Im fluent in english, spanish, french, polish and japanese. I also know chinese, arabic, portugese and german.

The thing that’s hard for me is that I only have around 4-5 activities on the common app, but those activities were high commitment, and very demanding to the point where I couldn’t fill my schedule any more, I’ve been in those 4-5 activities for all four of my high school years… Do you think that time dedicated could be considered rather than quantity of activities someone puts down?

I have taken classes and have been most of my life working with horses as a hobby can I put it in my college resume

Me an introvert: *cries*

It’s great when you’re held back from doing activities in general because you have no one to transport you.

Damn, I didn't realize these when i was on high school and i don't have any extra-curicullar activities. Now that I already graduated. Can i still be admitted to college? Im freaking out😧.

would creating a tarot club at my school be something to persue? i've been considering it because i love doing tarot and would like to show more people what it is, but i'm not 100% if there would be enough interest at my small school (there is about 60-70 kids in my grade).

I'm only a freshman right now but I want to graduate high school and go to a good college to make my parents proud