In an article published by The Atlantic titled “The College-Admissions Process Is Completely Broken. But it doesn’t have to be,” the author discusses how college applications for the 2022-23 season increased 10 percent since the 2021-2020 application season. While it is great that more applicants are applying to colleges, many institutions are still admitting the same amount of students, thus decreasing the acceptance rate. In the midst of these low college admissions, countless students have felt an increased need to expand their résumés. To become a stronger candidate, students often join and start clubs to fill their activities section of the Common Application. As a result, there are many clubs at this school that do volunteer work for a variety of charities; but do students joining and starting these types of clubs really care, or are they doing it just to boost their résumés? 

Volunteering and supporting charities is extremely important, especially for young adults. It allows students to find the difference they want to make in the world and be able to witness the real-life impacts of their efforts for others. I have witnessed this through my efforts as a part of Cabinet and it has immensely changed my outlook on life. Being a part of a club where everyone works toward a common goal is also beneficial to a student’s experience, especially at a school like this one, whose leaders constantly try to “make a big school small”. However, these rewards are only reaped when students put time and effort into it.

However, most clubs only meet a few times a school year, which likely would lead to decreased impact on the community they are serving. Further, the low requirements leads to low commitment and passion, when the goal of volunteering is to improve character and connection to a community. The low commitment by participants allows volunteering clubs to become an easy way to simply boost a résumé, rather than actually make an impact.

Not only do participants not gain anything from simply joining volunteering clubs to get something easy to put on their résumé, but college admissions officers can often see through an application. Many admissions officers would rather see depth in extracurricular activities, rather than breadth of low-commitment activities. In the end, joining any club is valid, but there is something you can gain from volunteering clubs far more rewarding than a college application.

The views in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of the HiLite staff. Reach Ali Persinger at [email protected].