Above and Beyond by Connor

Above and Beyond by Connor - October 2015 Scholarship Essay

Nothing looks better on a college resume than a student thoroughly active in extracurricular activities. Leadership capability is a prime example of what many teachers, colleges, and jobs look for in a student during the selection process, and extracurricular activities definitely show what a student is capable of in that regard. A slew of extracurricular activities is often what defines a student above another. That being said, making extracurricular activities a requirement to graduate might not have the positive effect that you would think.
In High School, students mature greatly. They begin to realize that their grades and activities have a major impact on what their future will hold, and many students consequently strive for good grades, good behavior, and strong involvement in a school. Getting a highest honors diploma or getting accepted into a college is one thing, but some students feel the need to go above and beyond their fellow peers. The best way of doing that is through extracurricular activities. Extracurricular activities are what sets apart the monotonic standards of high school and the vast level of discipline required to grow up, as it is the student's own choice to participate in these activities. Making these extracurricular activities a requirement puts a different view on them. Those activities become another one of those aforementioned monotonic standards of high school. Students would not do extracurricular activities to set themselves above one another, or to impress a college, or to become an established leader among their clubs if it was a requirement to graduate. They will just do them to graduate, and only graduate.
There is a reason why clubs like the National Honors Society exist. Those clubs pinpoint the best students, who do extracurricular activities, like volunteering, and who exhibit a leadership quality because of that. But those clubs are reserved for the best and the brightest, and being in National Honors Society is certainly not a requirement to graduate. The important thing about those clubs is the extracurricular activities, and that students who chose to do them are set apart from the others. That is what makes them unique, that is what shows their leadership skill. That is what defines a student's ability to follow orders from an ability to make their own decisions for themselves. They did not do a vast amount of extracurricular activities to graduate, they did it because it will set them above and beyond other students who did not do them. Making extracurricular activities a flat requirement to graduate will take those expansive opportunities away from them.