<p>This might be a dumb question but I heard from my friend that colleges only look at your EC for merit consideration, but it will not be part of admission. I heard that schools like top ivy league school take it into account during admission process. Then does this mean that ec is not as important as I think? </p>
<p>For the vast majority of colleges, EC’s will carry no weight. For the uber-selective schools, they do matter.</p>
<p>Google “common data set” and your prospective college’s name and it will tell you the importance of EC’s to the admissions process.</p>
<p>For [url=<a href=“MIT Institutional Research”>MIT Institutional Research]MIT[/url</a>], EC’s are “important”; for [url=<a href=“http://www.umass.edu/oapa/publications/cds/common_data_set.pdf]UMass[/url”>University Analytics and Institutional Research | UMass Amherst]UMass[/url</a>], they are “considered.”</p>
<p>What @skieurope said isn’t true. A majority of them actually do look at it and consider it in admissions. But it is used for more than merit aid. They are looking to see what you can contribute to the campus. </p>
<p>I believe what @AnnieBeats meant to say was: I have a differing opinion from skieurope, which I will now present.</p>
<p>Well if you did well above the averages in terms of GPA/SAT of a less selective college with much less demand, you would most likely be accepted regardless of extracurriculars, whereas if you applied to a more selective school with great stats but few/no/weak extracurriculars, you would have a harder time getting in (because so many applicants have great SAT’s and GPA’s and need something else to set them apart.)
A college with a ~70% acceptance rate and an average SAT of 1500 would probably accept a student with a 2300/4.0 regardless of EC’s. </p>
<p>
Per IPEDS, only 20% of four year non-profit colleges reject more students than they accept, and 45% admit more than 75% of their applicants. Additionally, the CIRP/HERI survey reveals that the vast majority of students wind up at their first or second choice college. </p>
<p>The colleges typically discussed on CC are only the very tip of a large iceberg. They have the luxury of choosing among hundreds or even thousands of students who have top-notch grades and test scores coupled with very impressive extracurriculars and awards. Most colleges are not nearly as lucky and cannot be so picky. While less selective colleges may still place importance on extracurriculars, they needn’t be quite so outstanding. As a general rule of thumb, private colleges are far more likely to consider extracurricular activities than public colleges, many of which admit students based purely on a GPA/SAT/class rank scale. </p>
<p>That said, extracurricular activities are always valuable. They allow you to pursue interests outside of school and can help you develop social and leadership skills. The time management skills that come along with demanding extracurriculars like sports are extremely useful for success in college. </p>
<p>A whole bunch of schools dont give a rat’s patootie about ECs for admissions. There are just too many schools that need to accept a bunch of students so that they will yield enough to have warm bodies filling up the seats. Usually only the more/most selective ones give real consideration to ECs. Since most schools are not that selective, many/most dont put much/any weight into ECs. </p>
<p>For many schools, if you have good stats for the school and no ECs, you will still get admitted. </p>
<p>Merit scholarships come in a few different flavors…highly selective ones, ones with a need component, somewhat selective ones, and assured ones for stats. I would say that many/most do not consider ECs. The more selective ones do because after the committees have looked over the applicants stats, they may use ECs to further help with down selection.</p>
<p>Actually @skieurope, that’s not what I meant to say. 
A large majority of 4 year colleges consider it in admissions.</p>
<p>@skieurope: you did not post as an opinion, you posted as a fact, an unsubstantiated fact. </p>
<p>Here’s my opinion, choosing my words carefully: at the vast majority of colleges (I’m guessing 90%), strong ECs are not required for admissions.</p>
<p>At a small percentage of schools (I’m guessing top ~20%), strong ECs will make a difference for your application when compared to another similar applicant with no ECs. Since there are so many applicants these days, basically this means that you need good ECs to get in to a good school.</p>
<p>As to your example of Harvard, I think it is very difficult to get in if you do not have good ECs. According to the Dead of Admissions, “Public service is a baseline”:</p>
<p><a href=“'The Ideal High School Graduate' - The New York Times”>http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/27/ideal-grad/</a></p>
<p>The idea that ECs are used for merit scholarships only is 100% wrong, but this is just my opinion. 
There may be a school or two out there that award small merit scholarships for public service.</p>
<p>According to a NACAC survey, while the majority of colleges consider EC’s, few consider them highly important. 7.4 percent of colleges in the survey considered them of “considerable importance”, 36.6 of “moderate importance”, 37.5 of “limited importance”, and 18.5 of “no importance.”</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nacacnet.org/research/PublicationsResources/Marketplace/Documents/RTPBrief_Factors.pdf”>http://www.nacacnet.org/research/PublicationsResources/Marketplace/Documents/RTPBrief_Factors.pdf</a></p>
<p>@Sue22 Thank you! I have been looking for that for weeks!</p>
<p>@skieurope, I never said all colleges find it important, but a majority do consider it in admissions.</p>
<p>@AnnieBeats will you stop saying that @skieurope is wrong? This isn’t the first thread I’ve seen you say that… Anyways… I think EC’s are looked at so they see if you’re involved because they want alumni who will come back and help and recruit for them. Just my opinion. </p>
<p>@SomethingWithin The data was posted above. He was wrong.</p>
<p>Well of course you are to make that opportunistic assessment when another member posts meaningful data that he found… It’s not about “winning” an argument - more so just giving good information to the one who asks the question.</p>
<p>@Ctesiphon Actually, wrong again. It’s not an “opportunistic assessment”. You can ask @T26E4 and @gibby. I posted that data on another thread with them, but I couldn’t find it after. </p>
<p>Here is the link to the conversation-
<a href=“http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1657775-will-college-admissions-look-at-the-jobs-you-ve-had-before.html”>http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1657775-will-college-admissions-look-at-the-jobs-you-ve-had-before.html</a></p>
<p>I’m not trying to “win” anything. The information given was incorrect. I believe that the OP deserves a chance to know how many colleges actually look at ECs.</p>
<p>OK, it seems fair to say that there is a lot of wiggle room on both sides since subjective terms are being used in that survey. After all, how does one really differentiate between “moderate” and “limited”? I feel confident that whole area of responses bleed into each other considerably. So it isn’t a right or wrong issue, I wouldn’t think, but one of some ambiguity. What does seem pretty likely is what everyone seems to agree on, at least by implication. Which is that the more selective the school, the more likely it is that EC’s will be considered and possibly considered fairly strongly, since they may represent the only tie breaker between an abundance of students with similar (and stellar) stats. Seem fair?</p>
<p>I’m not really concerned as to whether or not you posted that data on another thread, so I will not pursue an attempt to validate that claim.</p>
<p>Needless to say, I think that conversation on that thread you posted has some good info on this topic.</p>
<p>Imagine a sliding scale between the most selective colleges on one end (Stanford, Harvard, etc.) and the least selective on the other end (Northeast Central Southwest Analorifice State University, satellite campus) on the other. </p>
<p>At the most selective schools, they might be getting 15,000 applications for 1,000 seats, and 10,000 of those applications are “competitive” with GPA and SAT/ACT scores above their average acceptance. How can they differentiate to make admissions decisions? They could spin a roulette wheel, I supposed, but they want to take an honest look at the applications, and the ECs end up being just about the only way to distinguish <em>this</em> 4.0/2300 from <em>that</em> 4.0/2300.</p>
<p>At NCSASU, on the other hand, they might be getting 10,000 applications for 5,000 seats, and their averages are going to be somewhat lower than the S/H applications, too. They are likely to send offers to anyone who meets their academic minimums (if they have any), and a bunch of others as well. They will only need to look at ECs for borderline decisions - and their problem is the opposite of S/H. Instead of too many applications and not enough seats to put them in, they have plenty of seats and are worried about getting enough qualified students.</p>
<p>As a general rule, ECs are most important when the school is otherwise unable to choose among applicants with confidence, and least important when they could make 99% of their admission decisions by just plugging grades and test scores into a formula.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Most college students attend colleges which do not consider ECs in admissions. Consider all of these schools:</p>
<ul>
<li>Open admission community colleges.</li>
<li>Less selective state universities that admit by GPA/rank/scores only, often by formula.</li>
</ul>