Yeah, and “having nice eyes” makes a guy a more attractive candidate on Tinder, but it doesn’t replace “fat paycheck”.
Outside of the Top 25 or so universities, how important are ECs anyway? From what adcoms told us at data-driven unis like NCSU, where my D13 is a Senior, ECs were not considered at all. Neither were LORs.
But what about LACs maybe ranked 30 to 60? My D17 will not have hundreds of hours of anything.
I agree with @twoinanddone that whether it’s sports or scouts or whatever, kids should do those activities because they like them At least some part of their lives should not be primarily to get into the best college possible.
@PetulaClark - Yes I think being a varsity athlete is a great EC. We never had our kids do a million ECs, gamed their GPAs or had them take more AP classes than they wanted. The older two did fine in college admissions. The jury is out on the youngest. I’ll let you know when he has been accepted.
I feel very sad for kids who live/breath for college admissions.
Generally, the more competitive the school is for admissions the more likely they will include ECs for admission. Look at the Common Data Set for some representative schools to find out (section C7).