<p>I am currently a junior in hs and have fairly good ec's, including founding a polysci club at my hs in 9th grade and being president for the past 3 years? I get the sense that while private schools may care more about this, my first school choice is UMich and that they may not care all that much. Can anyone confirm or deny this?</p>
<p>GPA and test scores will be much more important.</p>
<p>Yet they are still helpful...... and yes they can make a difference. No extra curriculars can reject you, obviously, but student candidates with similar stats are also compared with EC's...... especially borderline candidates!</p>
<p>ditto to the last post. If you're borderline, it can make quite a difference. Also, if you went to a bad school that had like no opportunity and you made that happen, that will be considered greatly. I'd venture to say EC's at Michigan are just as important at ivy league or other private schools. The difference is that there is a much smaller range in scores at private schools, so the EC's basically have to get all the attention because they're the only thing that separates applicants. Also, acceptees at ivies tend to have extraordinary EC's, while applicants to publics have more "average" EC's like yours. At publics, test scores can separate students by quite a bit, so they end up having a little more importance, it's not because public schools just value test scores more. All the above mentioned universities have a wholistic approach, so umich basically will look at your app the same way a private school of similar caliber would.</p>