Joining clubs just for college applications does more harm than good
September 4, 2020
Many clubs at Fenton High School are held back by members who only joined so that they could have something extra to put on their college applications. These kind of members are quite interested in going to the meetings to get their free pizza, but not so excited about going to actual events to help people.
One of the clubs that is most highly concentrated with members who are just there for the college applications is the National Honor Society (NHS). Many of the members go to the meetings, but hardly any of the events. And when they do go to the events, they are highly uninterested and hang out with their friends the entire time. This makes the event less fun for those attending and it puts so much more work on the volunteers who are actually there for a good reason. This also makes FHS’s clubs less respectable.
Joining a club for just the college application is a waste of time for everybody. According to Super Tutor TV, colleges don’t care about how many volunteer hours an applicant has. Volunteering isn’t unique. Most people applying to colleges have plenty of volunteer hours. Huffpost says that volunteer work is “almost never helpful” for admission to the top 100 colleges.
Another reason that joining a club just for the college applications is bad is because it makes clubs that are less concentrated with inactive members have to pick up events at the last minute. This can be very annoying to those clubs as they often have to provide supplemental volunteers for clubs that, despite having sufficient numbers, have a difficult time getting engaged volunteers at events.
Members who joined a club for the college application aren’t always bad members. Sometimes, these students find that they truly enjoy the club and become some of the most active members. It is really only a problem if they don’t sign up for any events or are disengaged at events. It is completely fine to have college applications on your mind when joining a club, but you should be prepared to do work, and to do it well.
