 When I was in high school, my friends and I wasted hundreds if not thousands of hours on extracurricular activities that were a complete waste of time. In hindsight, these activities were fun, but they didn't necessarily help me or my friends get admitted to college. And I know this not only from my own experience, but because of the fact that later on I helped out with the admission process at the university that I went to. So this is the video that I wish my friends and I had in high school and not only am I going to go over the things you shouldn't do, but I'm also going to give you some tips on the things that you should do. Because when it comes to your activities in high school, your time is very limited and you need to be extremely selective about what you do when it comes to trying to get into your dream school. But I'll get to that more later on. Alright, so the first one on the list, and this is probably going to be the most common one you see, is going to be generic volunteer work. And this is going to include things that just about anybody and everybody does all the time anyways, regardless of whether they're applying to college anyways. So we're talking about generic community service, for instance. There's nothing innovative here. There's not going to be any original ideas. And if I had a dollar for every hour of generic community service that I did in high school, now, don't get me wrong. I think volunteering for charity, community service, all that sort of thing is great and everybody should do it. I've done lots of it in my life and I think it's great to develop the habit of giving value and expecting nothing in return. Not only does it make you feel great, but it also helps the world out. But with that being said, this video is all about being effective and we're focusing specifically on the things that are going to help you get into a good college. And when it comes to high school, so much of your time is already taken up and so time is such a limited resource and you have to be very careful where you spend your time. Think about it, you're already spending about eight hours a day at school and you're probably studying at least another two hours a day. So right off the bat, that's 50 hours a week. That's more than a full-time job. So you need to be very specific with your time and doing generic volunteer work, like walking around a track, helping out at a local library or picking up trash isn't going to help you all that much when it comes to standing out. And that right there is the key. Standing out is extremely important because when it comes to getting into a very competitive college, you don't want to look like everybody else because most people end up not getting in. Depending on what situation you're in, sometimes in life, it's best to not stand out and then other times it's best to stand out and this is one of those times. When it comes to getting into your dream college, this is one of those times where you want to stand out. So instead of doing generic volunteer work, maybe you can start your own organization or start your own project where you're helping people out just as much, if not more. If that's not an option, maybe you can join an organization that you're passionate about and work your way up to a higher level position and then you can be in charge of an exciting project that will showcase your leadership skill and initiative. Going and picking up trash on a Saturday and doing a few laps around a track for charity is great. Don't get me wrong. I think that's amazing, but it is not going to help you stand out. And it's not going to show colleges that you have initiative and leadership. So don't do community service because you think it's going to be impressive on an application. Do it for the right reasons and stop banging your head against the wall. All right. So number two on the list is going to be debate and forensics. And I can already see it and already see it. Some people are getting getting a little hot in here. Some people are going to be getting angry at this one. And keep in mind, guys, you know, I'm not making this video to like make fun of anyone or anything like that. Write down in the comments if you disagree with me on these because this one is unfortunate. I think debate and forensics might be one of the most important classes that you can take in high school because looking back on high school, there were lots of classes. And I hate to say this. They were pretty much a waste of my time. I have never once used any of the skills in many of these classes. However, there are a lot of classes that I wish were in high school, like personal finance, for instance. But seriously, debate and forensics teaches you skills that you are actually going to use the rest of your life, like communication, critical thinking, formulating an argument, giving a speech. Debate and forensic is amazing for developing these skills and it will basically make you a big brain. But the truth is the college admissions people are not going to be like, oh my God, I heard he did debate in high school. Like pretty much every smart kid does debate. Like it's extremely common for people who are applying to like Ivy League colleges to have done debate and forensics. Now, I'm not going to lie. If you win something like a regional or a national championship and debate or forensics, that is impressive. But very few people are going to get to that level and this also takes a ton of time. I mean, out of all the ones on this list, I think debate and forensics probably takes the most time. TMI here, but you know, the girl that I dated for pretty much most of high school did debate and forensics. And I can say that it took a lot more time than any of the sports that I did. In fact, it probably took up more time than all three sports combined. And I did three different sports in high school. I know you probably can't believe it. I look like a nerd, but I actually did football track and then I did boxing on the side. And the time that she took to do debate and forensics, man, oh my gosh, it took up so much of her time. She would get home late at night and only get a few hours of sleep. You know, her grades suffered because of it, but she did it because she really enjoyed it. And it wasn't because she wanted to get into some fancy college or anything like that. It was just because she enjoyed it and she thought it was going to be useful. So again, if this is something you're passionate about, you absolutely love it, then go for it. But don't do this one just because you think it's going to look good on a college application. Number three on the list is going to be participating in sports. So this is going to be something like being a bench warmer on a varsity team, cheerleading or pep squad. That's right, the glory days of high school sports. I played varsity football back in high school. I even started on the kickoff team. That's right, Chesty Lyons football team. We went one and eight, barely won the last game of the season. So we barely avoided getting swept, finest moment of my football career was very proud. Now, speaking of nerds doing sports, like I said, I did football, track, and then I also did a little bit of boxing on the side in high school. And to be realistic and honest with you guys, I was very average at all of them. So when it comes to sports, do them because you love them, not because you think it's going to be impressive on an application. And again, I just want to preface this by saying, I think sports are amazing for developing teamwork and discipline, but you should do it because you love to do it, not because you think it's going to look good on an application. Now, if you're really passionate about it, you love to do it, or you're in a leadership position, like you're very good at it, and maybe you make it to state or national, something that's really impressive, or maybe you're the team captain, then that might actually look good. Next one on the list is going to be summer activities like summer camps and mission trips. These are going to be things that you went off and maybe did for a few days or a few weeks. Now, again, I think these are great if you're doing it for the right reasons, you want to go and explore another culture or help people out. But when it comes to standing out, when it comes to looking really good on an admission or an application, it's not really going to help you all that much. Because the truth is colleges want to see you demonstrate long-term commitment, not something that you did for a few days or a few weeks, and then you went back to your normal life. Almost all people who are highly successful in life unless they got really lucky demonstrate long-term commitment, right? So pretty much anything in life that is worth doing is going to take a very long time of working and grinding before you see any reward. And so that is what colleges want to see. They want to see you working with an organization for at least a year, maybe several years and doing a really exciting project. And this is another thing that you see people put all the time on their applications and their resumes. And again, it just does not help you stand out. And at the end of the day, it's pretty much going to be a waste of space unless you don't have anything better to put on there. Now instead, you could be the person who either creates one of these events, creates an organization or organizes one of these. That would be much more impressive. It wouldn't be just you participating in something that somebody else created. It's you actively going out there and having the initiative and leadership to create something yourself. Number five on the list is going to be one that I'm the most guilty of, which is spam joining organizations. During high school and especially college, I kind of spam joined organizations. And the reason I did this is because I kind of knew that I was an introvert and I wanted to force myself to get out of my comfort zone. So I probably joined like 20 different organizations. I would go to a bunch of the meetings and the events. And this would take up a ton of my time. And I realized eventually that I wasn't actually accomplishing all that much. So what I do, I made it even worse by applying to a ton of different positions within these organizations. There was seriously one semester where I had five or six different positions within all of these different organizations. There was one time where I was president of the class, vice president of an organization. I was the liaison between the pharmacy school and the business school. I was head of fundraising for another organization. And then I was on a bunch of different committees as well. And on top of that, I joined a bunch of organizations and I would attend their meetings. It was absolutely ridiculous. It took up so much of my time. And looking back on it, I didn't actually accomplish all that much in any individual situation. I was basically just going through the motions. I was participating, but I wasn't actually accomplishing anything. And the thing is when somebody sees that you have a certain position on your resume or your CV, they're going to ask you about it. And if your answer is, Oh yeah, I did that position and I just did like day to day tasks and I just like talked to all the other members and I attended meetings. They're not going to be impressed. What they really want to see is you had maybe one or two leadership positions max and you actually accomplished something. So for instance, you could be the president of one organization and you could start a new scholarship. And anyone in an interview is going to be able to tell that if you joined just a bunch of different organizations and you can't really say what you specifically did, they're going to know that you just stretched yourself too thin and you really didn't accomplish anything. You were just participating. However, if they see something on your CV and your resume and they ask you about it and you're able to passionately explain exactly what you accomplished, that is going to impress them. And just practically speaking here, I would say maybe two positions max. And maybe you should do one that's kind of higher up like president or vice president. And then maybe one that's lower as well so that you can show that not only do you have leadership skills, but you can also be a team player. All right, so now that I've told you what not to do, let's briefly go over what you should do. One, I think that you should try to create something unique. All right, so everybody has their own unique gifts from God, their own talents. Now, of course, you could just straight up invent something and that would be awesome. But let's be honest, if you could do that, you probably should just skip college and become the next Elon Musk. But a realistic example that I thought was really awesome was this student who created a website to keep accurate information on COVID-19. She realized that everyone was panicking and she took the initiative to create a website that has accurate information and it's a little bit more user friendly than a lot of the government websites out there. A second thing you could do that's extremely impressive for a high school student is doing research with a professor. One thing that's sort of unfortunate about universities, I guess it's kind of a good thing and a bad thing is many of them are extremely research oriented. They are all about researching and getting grants. In my opinion, I think they should be more focused on actually teaching the students and making sure that students get a lot of value out of their experience there. But I mean, you know, that's just my opinion. So demonstrating that you can do research with a professor even when you're in high school is extremely impressive. And this is especially true if you are able to get your name published on a paper. Speaking of publishing, it's not just papers, you could do an app, a book or even just an article. This is something you could customize in order to make as unique as possible because again, you want to stand out. Number three would be some type of leadership position like being the captain of a club or the president. And like I mentioned before, you can have a leadership position. I think that's great, but you need to focus on actually accomplishing something. If they ask you what you actually did with this position, you don't want to just be like, oh, I just did like presidential stuff, just day to day stuff. You want to be able to tell them exactly what you accomplished when you were in that position of power and you want to be able to say something that you're extremely proud of. You didn't just hold up the position and do absolutely nothing with it. You actually accomplished things. Did you create a new fundraiser? Did you organize a new event? Did you create a scholarship for the local community? These are all the types of things you want to be thinking about. Actually accomplish something with the time that you're in that position. Number four would be a founder. So maybe starting your own business, a nonprofit or even a club. Being a founder of something is probably even more awesome than having a leadership position because it shows that you have true initiative. It also shows leadership, creativity and all the other buzzwords that they're going to be looking for. So something like looking up a club that doesn't exist at your school, but it should and then being the founder of that club. Number five on the list is going to be an award winner. So something like winning a national award of some kind. International would be even better. So an obvious example of this would be winning a state championship. That is definitely impressive. Winning a national science competition, going to nationals in debate and winning it or scoring really well. And this is really rare just because of the fact that thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of students try to achieve something like this and fail. Just like me and my one in eight football team, we went into the year thinking we were going to try to win a championship and didn't work out too well. If you haven't done it already, go ahead and gently tap that like button, just boop it and then go ahead and also hit that subscribe button, ring the notification bell, comment down below any thoughts, comments, criticisms, et cetera that you have on the video and whatever you do, don't leave, check out my other videos right here. I made them just for you.