Are my extracurriculars too generic for Ivy Leagues and other top 20 schools?
I am currently in gr 11, and a Canadian high school student. I am volunteering, have started a club in my school, completed an AI program, shadow a doctor and competitively swam with my school team. My main focus extracurricular activity is robotics. I am the current team lead for our school's internationally competing team and I love it. It is a huge passion of mine, I have done so much with the team and continue to work on different projects. I have been to all the competitions and been on all of our team trips. I plan on studying engineering after highschool and want to apply to MIT, Stanford, Princeton, Yale, Johns Hopkins, and Cornell or Duke. The major disadvantage of robotics is that as an indian female, I am worried this is a very generic EC for most people in my demographic, and I really want to be able to stick out during application time. What could I do to make myself a much more unique applicant?
Hey there @saanvisidhu!
I don't think your extracurricular profile sounds too 'generic' for a top 20 school, but I think you should definitely show that you focus on/prioritize robotics in your application. If you want to create a list of good potential extracurriculars, I would suggest watching videos of students on YouTube. A lot of them have different activities, scholarships, and opportunities that I'd never heard of before. There are definitely a lot of students who will do robotics and swim team and various clubs, so the biggest part of you standing out to schools will be your recommendation letters and essays.
Good luck!
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