<p>I am a rising junior but I have a friend who graduated in June and he got accepted to claramont McKenna. The only EC's he had was that he was in the varsity football team. And he was a top AP scholar. He wasn't involved in anything else. He is a really good student but I am just confused that he had little to almost none extra curricular activities. Do students get accepted purely on academics often?</p>
<p>Well, it depends on the schools you’re applying to. Upper tier schools and Ivy Leagues get so many applications that they need to look at other aspects of an application (besides academics) so that is where ECs come into play. They make you stand out among other applicants with similar SAT scores/grades/etc.</p>
<p>Well, cmc isn’t an ivy now is it?</p>
<p>It largely depends on the schools you plan to apply to. For the Ivies and top privates, ECs make up a very important part of the application. This does not, however, apply in the same sense to state schools and lower-tiered privates.</p>
<p>The worse the school, the less they care about ECs</p>
<p>If he was recruited for football then that’s probably why</p>
<p>Agreed if he was recruited. Good grades and football can probably go a long way at LACs.</p>
<p>Did he tell you that football was his only extracurricular, or is that your assessment? He might have a few random things that you don’t know about. And a varsity sport can still look pretty good, especially if it’s something you train for all year and spend hours a day on during the season.</p>
<p>^^^ The worse the school, the less they care about anything (grades test scores etc.)</p>