“I’m only doing it because it’ll look good on college applications.”
I still remember the first time I ever heard this rationale said aloud. Walking back to class, my friend and I started discussing the club meeting we’d both attended the day before, realizing a commonality: we both hated it. It was clear to me that I would stop going to the club meetings and put my effort into something I found fulfillment in. However, when she responded with those 11 daunting words, I was stopped in my tracks. Why would anyone do something they didn’t enjoy just to impress a college admissions board? It wasn’t until later that I realized that not only was this a ridiculous sentiment, but it was a common one—especially with club founders.
It’s no secret that participating in extracurricular activities is a necessary aspect of high school that allows students to explore interests, make new connections, and develop skills. I myself have reaped the benefits of the flexibility with clubs at WA by founding my own club. However, one should become wary when students only choose to participate in these activities for the sole purpose of building an impressive resume. The intention of the club transforms from something with a meaningful purpose into a performative stunt that masquerades as genuine interest.
It is drilled into students’ heads that in order to be a well-rounded applicant for colleges, they must gain some sort of leadership title to stand out. A survey by Lindenwood University reported that 73% of high school students cited college applications as a major motivation for finding a leadership position. With this, many turn to creating their own clubs to satisfy that need, as it can be very difficult to gain leadership positions in clubs where they are competing with numerous other peers.
I understand that there is a valid reason for why people may start clubs due to the pressure that colleges have placed on high schoolers to make change, but it is harmful to our society if our peers are only pretending to care about the change needed to improve our world without any desire to make a difference outside of WA’s brick walls. Colleges would rather see that an applicant delves into a few extracurriculars instead of a long list of superficial memberships.
This leaves students scrambling, trying to find anything that could work in the school setting. I have seen my friends creating organizations and clubs that they have no interest in or passion for, just because they think it will improve their application if they attempt to tackle a worldly issue. This defeats the entire purpose of clubs, which are meant for exploring what truly captivates someone rather than being a vehicle to impress others.
Many clubs may also have similar objectives or topics of interest, with the only difference being the club leaders themselves. Instead of having a few clubs geared towards the same general goal or interest, there could be one larger club that allows participants to dive deeper into their projects with a more organized and refined structure.
Clubs are also major commitments that take up a lot of time, so having multiple groups revolving around the same concept causes students to attend multiple meetings every day after school for the same information. When one larger club is centered around the same topic, participants will only have to allocate one day per week to engage in the activity, freeing up more time to do other things they find enjoyment in.
Having an expansive club landscape also creates a highly competitive environment in which each club has to persuade new members to join. Leaders must find a workaround when a more member-dense club is meeting, so that they can get the largest number of people to attend. This can be incredibly inconvenient as it may not align with the club leaders’ schedule, leading to a lack of commitment to other activities they might want to engage in.
One way club leaders try to garner membership is by creating more elaborate activities. However, this can quickly deplete funds with purchases such as art supplies, snacks, and technological materials, which can be upwards of $20 according to Students Rebuild president and sophomore Anya Jain. Community events also involve hefty planning and resources that involve booking a space, purchasing event materials, and possible merchandise. Many club leaders have to pay the difference for these tasks if they do not have the financial capacity through fundraising Jain said, which is harmful when trying to instill better financial habits at a younger age. The wide selection also exhausts needed school resources. Because of the large number of clubs that need advisers, many teachers are unavailable during after-school hours when they are needed for upcoming tests or homework help.
This competition between clubs also leads to club-hopping. Instead of fully engaging in a club, students will leave once they sign the attendance sheet and repeat the process, according to Jain. This is done to leave the impression that they stayed for the whole duration of the activity, granting them a better position when applying for leadership.
According to a study conducted by the National Institutes of Health, being involved in so many clubs also leads to stress over being committed to multiple different things at once. This renders poor time management, as when one spends most of their after-school hours completing work for an extracurricular, they have less time to focus on their academics: a grounding principle as to why school was established in the first place.
“It has definitely been a struggle to gain more members over the years because of how many different clubs there are,” Civic Leaders of America director of debate and sophomore Druti Ranuva said. “We’ve had to rely on past members continuously showing up to have successful meetings.”
A new program led by Dean Betsy Murphy called the “Club Cafe” has been introduced this year to better accommodate the growing demand for club certification. It does this by containing clubs without advisers in one singular area in order to offer more activities every Thursday. According to Ranuva, the 12 clubs participating in this initiative have around 10 consistent members each due to the wide selection of clubs that occur on that day. With such a minimal amount of people attending meetings, it is much more difficult to get a diverse range of perspectives and ideas when it comes to club activities and events. It has also posed some challenges as clubs are unable to fundraise, which is a key factor to a club’s success.
To best rectify this issue, there should be an evaluation of each club to measure their attendance, impact, and whether or not they could be joined together with another club. Through this, it can be determined if a specific club is really needed or not. Additionally, there should be a limit on how many pilot clubs there can be in one year, to require students to think deeply if they care about the message or mission of the club, and keep trying to get it approved.
When we look back on our high school years, we probably will not be thinking of all the clubs we founded or regret that our college applications weren’t perfect. We will remember the memories we made in our classes, the field trips, and the extracurricular activities we put our all into. We must remind ourselves that high school is not the sun that our lives are revolving around, meaningful and joyful experiences are.
