# How do colleges check for club membership?

I have some trouble remembering if I was part of one of my favorite clubs in 9th grade. This is because in 9th grade, if I was a member, there was not much involvement, as many of the activities are for 10th graders and up. Especially since now I am heavily involved and am currently president and doing a lot of the work, 9th grade seems almost insignificant. The only year I am unsure of is 9th grade, and for some reason I don't seem to remember whether I was actually an official member or not during that one year. If I list 9th grade also, but it turns out to be a mistake, will I be punished? If I am unsure, should I just leave off 9th grade to be safe? The thing is my counselor thinks I have been in the club for sure for all 4 years, so if there is a difference in what she says and what I say, is that a big deal? 

  * By the way this is a language club and in 9th grade my classroom was the same room for the club, so I feel like I would have been in the club no matter what, especially since I really love the langauge. If they don't have my membership on record though, that might be a big problem right? 

  * Colleges will not check for membership of a club, especially if it's not on a national scale, since membership alone in a club means nothing. 

  * ok well it is the difference between three years and four years, but I am guessing it doesn't matter much. It was only 9th grade and I barely did anything, so the only thing I was worried about is if I put it down and there isnt an official record or anything. But I guess they don't care if you include it or not, since mostly the leadership positions is what they care about most. 

  * If you fear the consequences of getting caught, should adcoms decide to "check for club membership", here's how to decide:  
  
Don't lie. 

  * The OP is not planning on lying, he just cannot remember. Give it your best shot in good faith, and move onto the next line in your app. It does not matter, really! 

  * No I don't plan on lying. And I won't. I think to be safe I will just not include it. I am only asking this because some people I talked to just told me to go ahead and put it on, but I would feel bad about doing that. 

  * I think you should definitely include it.  
  
1) Your GC is _sure_ you were in it.  
2) You think you _probably_ were in it.  
3) It behooves you to have a four year, rather than three year, membership in this club. It shows that you've been interested in this language for an additional 33% more time. That's a lot.  
4) If you weren't in it but put down that you were, there will be _no ramifications._ Colleges will not check about whether you were in the club all four years. If they tried to--well, there's no record, is there, or else you yourself could find out. So they couldn't even know whether you were actually in the club all four years. The absolute worst thing--and this would never even happen, I guarantee you 99.999%--is that they find out you weren't in the club in 9th grade, and then you explain that your GC said you were and you thought you were and you weren't sure how to check.  
  
I see no reason to put that you weren't in the club, when you very well might have been. 

  * hmm, but I think I will just go ahead and be completely honest. I only listed the extra year because I filled my activities out by memory, so I didn't have like a log of all the years I did stuff, so some of the info isnt as accurate. I want to make sure they know I didn't intend to lie. In any case, having that last year or not doesn't change much.