If your passion is cooking, enter a local, state or national cooking contest; start a little catering business; provide weekly cooking lessons to children in your school’s day care center; offer to be a “celebrity” cook at your school’s auction event; take advantage of special English or History projects by doing research and writing papers on some food or cooking topic; attend a cooking school for a short course; work part-time for a company such as Williams-Sonoma.
If you are a surfing nut, enter surfing contests; create a surf-a-thon with local high schools to raise money for a charity; teach surfing to disadvantaged kids; take marine science courses at a local college; found a surfing team at your high school; use your surfing skills to become a lifeguard; write a paper on the physics of surfing or the physical and mental health benefits of the sport.
Whatever your interests are, you can find ways of getting better at it, using it, helping others through it, making money doing it, researching or studying it, or being recognized for your talent or skill. This then becomes a demonstration to colleges of your resourcefulness, ingenuity, skill level, initiative, persistence, and leadership. AND it is also a way for you to spend more time doing or sharing what you love.
SOME EXTRACURRICULAR OPTIONS
1. IN-SCHOOL VERSUS OUT-OF-SCHOOL ACTIVITIES
As with academic interests, colleges are sometimes more impressed when students go outside their own high school’s resources to act on their interests. This is because pursuing out-of-school activities often involves a fair amount of initiative, and takes a lot more effort on your part. Sometimes outside activities and resources are more advanced than what is available at high schools.
2. SPORTS
Hordes of children are now beginning to play sports when they are four, five and six years old. Every year, boys and girls start out with soccer, often move on to T-ball, and finish up with tennis. If you scratch the surface behind why kids are doing this, many parents might tell you that they have dreams of college sports scholarships or sports “ins” during college admission, even though that may be 10 or 15 years away.
Although not of a varsity caliber, many admissions people have been athletes at one time or another. Therefore, they understand and appreciate the kind of time, energy, and commitment that different sports require. A high school athlete who is not qualified to be recruited will still be of interest to admissions people because of what his or her involvement represents, both in and outside of school.
PARENT TIP! Parents need to understand that the actual number of students who end up being recruited athletes at colleges is very low. Even among athletic standouts, there are no guarantees. Therefore, the smart and “right” thing to do about your children’s early athletic involvement is to make sure that they have a good time, develop some skills, and also learn how to be a part of a team.
