I’m class of 2025 and starting to worry that I don’t have enough ECs to get into a selective university. I swim year round for a competitive club, practicing 15 hrs/week, every afternoon except Thursday. Tue-Thu practice is also at 5-6:30am, so I have to get to bed by 9ish. We only get one week off at Easter and two in August, when my family goes on our vacations. I’m lifeguarding this summer and am thinking of teaching swim lessons, too. I swim for my HS team and will be captain this year. (But I don’t go to HS practices because they’re way too easy.) I don’t know how to fit anything else in. I can’t take off to go do “research” or space camp or anything. Do colleges understand this or am I still expected to do clubs, etc?
One of my daughters was a competitive dancer (12 hours a week), ran xc, winter and spring track, did the HS musical every year, was a student ambassador, in HOSA, 3 honor societies (officer in 1), peer leadership with her church, in chamber singers (highest choir), babysat and gave dance privates for $. My kids who did year round club soccer played on the varsity team (daily practices/games), winter and spring track plus the varsity soccer spring league, participated in the same clubs as their sister. It was a lot, but everything they did, they did because they liked it. There were no elite colleges on their lists ($). No they did not get 8 hours of sleep a night, but managed good/great grades. My youngest (twins) struggled a bit during Covid without it all (graduated in 2021), especially my son without soccer, went a bit off the rails.
My S24 is a musician with a similar schedule and similar lack of other ECs. We aren’t worrying about it. If you aren’t a recruited athlete and this is what you love, do it and know that highly selective colleges are a lottery regardless of your ECs.
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They may or may not.
It is your responsibility to communicate the time commitment in your application. Some swimmers may devote more time to that activity than other swimmers.
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OK, but that doesn’t answer my question. Also, if your kids could do year round soccer club but also do track, then they must not have had the practice schedule my swim team has. I cannot be in two places at once.
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Lot of kids that get into good colleges manage their time well and find time to do the things they love. They also tightly prioritize. My son told me that he had a 20-25h/wk EC time commitment when he was in high school. And got 8-9 hours of sleep a day.
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On the Common App you will list your activities and the time you spend on them per week. If you’re spending 15 hours per week on swimming, you’ll have the opportunity to list that. If you’re thinking that this EC and the time you spend on it will be important for selective college admissions, I’m sorry to tell you that it probably will not. That is, unless you’re a recruited athlete. Otherwise, its just another school club like Key Club or FBLA, so do it because you love it.
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unless you are a recruited athlete, your swimming will be viewed as any other EC. the good news is that depth is just as impressive as breadth so your leadership, work experience, and commitment to your swimming and your team will be viewed as impressive. You have a place on your applications to indicate the time commitment of each activity
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You mention that you are looking to get into a “selective” university. These schools have low acceptance rates and practice holistic admissions. Your swimming will help you stand out, if you also have the rigor, essays and recommendations that the school is looking for. I have 2 kids at highly selective schools, and from our experience it is really important to look for fit, not just selectivity. Schools all have different cultures and priorities. Many of these are clear from researching the school and talking to admissions. Find schools that you feel like are a good match for you. Schools that you would love to attend and that you would be able to contribute in a way that they are seeking, and highlight those qualitites and prioritites in the application. There is no surefire way to gain admissions to these selective schools, but having one activity that you are passionate about and in which you excel and have shown leadership and commitment can stand out on your application, and help the school understand you and how you would “fit” into the community.
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Varsity sports were after school for a couple of hours, club soccer was nights and weekends. My daughter would go to xc after school, run for a couple of hours, eat dinner, go to the dance studio for a couple of hours a night, come home, shower, do homework. Every day. And eventually she had to lie to her dance teacher and tell her she quit xc/track, because her dance teacher did not approve (felt her focus should’ve been dance). My kids in club soccer had varsity soccer everyday after school, come home for dinner, club practice was only a few nights a week though.
OK, thank you. That’s good advice. I guess I’m just frustrated when people seem impressed by varsity sports. The varsity sports at my school are way less demanding than my club is. I have straight As and am taking AP and honors classes and am a pretty good writer, especially compared to my classmates. But I just don’t know what else to do for ECs. I started Boy Scouts but left the troop when everyone seemed too interested in guns and acting like they were in the military. That was not my personality at all.
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Are you sure the time per week spent on swimming is 15 hours/week? That seems light to me based on what you wrote for your club time commitment. You should include practice time, meet time/travel time, captains meetings, dry land training, any anything else that makes sense.
As far as other activities: If you compete for your HS, that’s a separate activity, with those hours/weeks spent on it. Lifeguarding is another activity. Teaching swim lessons another.
I agree with the poster who said that if you aren’t a recruited athlete the time spent on your sport with be considered an EC. And club sports is a good EC (as are the jobs related to it)…athletes often demonstrate skills that are highly desirable to colleges such as good time management, leadership, perseverance, commitment, resilience, goal orientation, etc.
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I am pretty sure that admissions staff at elite university do indeed understand the time commitment that is required to do some sports very well, including swimming. You do not need to have a long list of ECs and are not expected to have a long list of ECs.
As I understand it, in terms of extracurricular activities, the point is to do what is right for you, and do it very well. This sounds like exactly what you have done.
And of course you need to keep in mind that universities on the “Harvard, MIT, Stanford, …” level are reaches for everyone. You also need to apply to safeties and make sure that you find safeties that you would be happy to attend.
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Kid was a high level (won 2 solo intl competitions plus did national stuff with school ) performing artist. When we totaled it up, excluding the probably 6 hrs a week of drive time, kid had always spent >40 hrs a week on that EC, in addition to high school. College wanted kid for both academic and EC. I think they saw kid as a recruited performing artist. Kid performs a ton on campus.
So yes, schools are aware of the time it takes do a competitive, highly ranked anything. Dont be modest. Add up all the hours honestly, and put it on the common app. If you are good enough to be a recruited athlete at that school, and want to go that route, and they want you, you will be golden. If you are not going to be a recruited athlete, they will view it as having been deeply involved in an EC which you will not continue. They will weigh it in your favor, but not any more so than someone who did other intense ECs, which most competitive kids nowadays either do, or claim to have done. You will not be dinged for having had a laser focus on swimming in your ECs.
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I see now - you are swimming for your HS, will be captain, but you swim intensively at the club level in order to compete at a higher level. You are a high achiever academically, too.
The big question, in fact, the ONLY question is, are your times fast enough to be a recruited swimmer at any of the schools you would like to go to? Don’t overlook the good small liberal arts colleges (the “little Ivies” - Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, and certain others, plus another 50 or so excellent small LACs). You might be able to be a recruited athlete for them, when you might not make the cut for the Ivies or the T20 type schools. If you are sick of swimming competitively, and are absolutely sure you do not want to do this freshman year, then so be it, but this is your biggest tool to get into a highly competitive school, if that’s what you want, so consider using it. Once you’re in, you’re in, and you don’t have to swim more than one season, if you don’t want to. You need to reach out to coaches at the schools, communicate your times to them. Honestly, you’re late in the game if this is the route you want to go, but not absolutely too late. If your times are good enough, they will check you out this summer. You sound as if you would pass an academic pre-read anywhere that the coach wants you.
If you do not go the recruited athlete route, yes, your ECs will look great, but no better than hordes of other people. Without any other hook, you are unlikely to be accepted to an extremely selective school, because everyone without a hook has very little chance at those schools.
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They absolutely do. As advised, if you are competitive enough to get recruited at any of the schools you are considering, that’s a great shortcut to the front of the line.
But if you’re not, no worries. AOs understand – and like - the commitment of club athletes, gymnasts, equestrians, musicians, dancers, etc who essentially have a “second job” in the form of their intensive EC.
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Don’t confuse quantity with quality.
If you have quantifiable quality, you’ll be fine. Tenure, hours per week, growth - it will be recognized.
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You have a great record. You do not need to get involved in activities that you are not interested in to impress a college. If your club is more rigorous than a varsity team, as others have said, there will be ways to share that in your application. For most selective schools there are a variety of ways to let the admissions staff understand who you are and what you will add to the community. Just as you learned in Boy Scouts, not every community may be the best for you. Choose schools you are excited about for reasons other than just selectivity and let yourself shine in your application.
In our neck of the woods, everyone knows how tough it is being on the swim teams. My eldest was “recruited” by the high school coaches. She was required to take a swim class in freshman year. (We had always had the kids in swim classes since the age of 3.)
One day, the swim teacher asked her to stay in the pool and wait. Her classmate “Emily” got into the pool and they asked both to swim across the pool and timed both.
Daughter was annoyed and grumpy, and just wanted to get out of the pool, and not be late to her next class. So she swam as fast as she could and asked if she could get out of the pool. They said to swim again and ran her time. She ended up passing Emily both times. Turns out that Emily was a state champ and our daughter had better times, so they wanted her on swim. So our DD started practicing and she couldn’t take the practice hours-5 am to 7 am, then 2 to sundown- everyday. Then the tournaments and weekend practices and fundraisers. She fell asleep while eating dinner one day and was exhausted and quit the team. She preferred her tennis team and teammates and they were both in the same season. All three of our kids loved tennis! (Son was actively sought for football and tennis during sports physicals).
Because of the decades long history of our high school’s strong sports programs, our students were recruited athletes to UCLA and USC and the private colleges in California.
If you are in California, they will know what swim involves.
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Colleges understand that many students have incredibly time consuming ECs. Frankly, unless the student is an athletic recruit, they aren’t likely to give the app special consideration over someone who practices violin 15 hours a week, or who dances 15 hours a week, or who paints 15 hours a week.
The most rejective colleges want it all. There are just too many exceptional applicants.
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