Exactly. What we cared about was that our kid was doing something which added to her life.
When we started her on extracurricular activities, we had absolutely no idea that these had anything to do with college. As I’ve written before, neither of us grew up the the US, so neither of us was aware of the impact that is could have on college admissions. We set up extracurricular activities because we knew that school was not the best place for these activities, or didn’t provide them.
We decided that she should have at least one physical activity, and she loved dance, so she has done that since kindergarten. She still dances in a performing group at college. She has been engaged in different activities since first grade, and has explored all sorts of fields. She’s done geology, archeology, graphic design, music, and dance. She has also done Girl Scouts and other stuff. We’ve taken her to music shows, museums and the zoo, as well as hauling her in different trips in the USA and internationally.
It’s interesting that so many people now look at ECs as mostly activities that are required for college, similar to course selection. That is not their origins at all. know that my parents were both very involved in ECs back in the 1950s, and most kids were not college-bound, and even college bound kids were mostly going to the state schools, none of which really cared about ECs.
Colleges actually barely cared about classes, it was entrance exams. My father never finished high school, and went to college instead of to his senior year in high school. I saw the letter that the principle sent him and his parents telling him that dropping out of high school was a bad idea. My father ended up not graduating undergrad either, and instead started a masters, which he also never finished. Instead he went on to do his PhD at Columbia. That was the only degree that he ever finished…