E/C that are good for college admission

Parent Cafe
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Maybe, maybe not. Maybe he’d love playing the tuba just as much, and would be better at it. Maybe he’s a better singer than trumpet player, and could use some encouragement. I don’t know about all kids, but quite a few kids I’ve known have been fairly fluid in what interests them, and encouragement and opportunities can make a big difference. I certainly think it can be hard to draw the line between pursuing your passion in the face of discouragement, and banging your head against the wall.</p>

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<p>A couple of things on this topic. Characteristics of EC’s that help in admissions (from my D’s experience). 1) Show a fairly long consistent participation (joining a number of different clubs, etc. Junior & Senior years leads to speculation that you are “resume stuffing”) 2) Demonstrate leadership / excellence in your chosen EC’s 3) Convey (through your letters of Rec.) that you are highly valued within your EC group. None of my D’s EC’s directly pertained to her chosen major at Cornell but they all demostrated excellence, committment, and leadership. This along with essays & letters of rec. got her admitted with “borderline stats” & no “hook”.</p>

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<p>Having watched admissions now at two high schools over 7 years I have observed a syndrome of the over-scheduled kids, checking off all the EC boxes (sports, music, volunteering, leadership) and keeping up good grades and good scores yet not getting into the schools of their dreams. I can’t help but wonder if all that time spent on the soccer field or the band practice or the environment fund raiser didn’t steal just a bit of time and attention from the academics. It’s important to remember that the transcript and teacher recs are usually ranked first. The teachers can tell if the student is doing the minimum for the A or going at the class with passion and extracting all they can from it. That is what results, imo, in the type of teacher recs that get the applicant attention. And that kind of scholarly activity is what results in essays on the application that show real intellectual vitality.</p>

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<p>I will give an example in D2´s case. D2 loves to write and enjoys debate team. Through out high school, she is involved with newspaper and the debate team. The debate team took up a lot of her time (research, practice, and long days when there is a competition) and it´s hard to stand out. She couldn´t do both, so she decided to pursue the editor-in-chief position instead because it is well regarded by many adcoms and it is something she likes. </p>

<p>D2 didn´t do that many ECs Junior year because she moved to a new high school. But for senior year at her new school she is taking on leadership position in 3 major organizations which are consistent with what she was doing at her old school - president of the children´s cancer society and head of LINK, and she got the editor-in-chief position. This is all in addition to her dance training.</p>

<p>If a kid is following his/her passion (or at least interest), his ECs will generally be consistent, instead of many different minor involvement with various clubs. At the same time, a kid may need to choose which EC to get involved in due to time constraint, and there are some ECs which would give a kid more bang for the bucks when it comes to college application.</p>

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<p>My kids’ relevant ECs were actually things they didn’t really discover till junior year, and they were not activities in which one competes, wins awards, advances, or gets elected president of. But they were interesting, different and extremely authentic to who they are.</p>

<p>And in hindsight the things I pushed S to do (newspaper, literary magazine) turned out to be not important at all.</p>

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<p>Hunt, here is an example I had in mind when I posted #38. </p>

<p>In this part of the world, a math and science kid has a choice between <em>team</em> math and science activities such as state and regional math competitions like MathCounts, Science Olympiad, TEAM/JETS (an engineering competition), Knowledge Master, Science Quiz Bowl (I may have the name of that wrong) and others, or <em>individual</em> Biology (and other field) Olympiads, Math Olympiads, research projects in university labs…</p>

<p>One difference is that the former group has very little, if any, opportunity for individual recognition, and in the case of Science Olympiad even if an individual or team of two nabs the highest state-level prize, there is no national competition if the team as a whole does not win the state competition. The bigger difference is that the former affords the chance for a very sociable kid who loves doing things as a group to get together with friends on a regular basis to build things, to stay after school and brainstorm for hours in preparation for a team contest, to travel with friends and hang out for a fun weekend at team competitions, whereas many of the other Big Name Competitions require many hours of individual preparation, but do not involve taking over the basement, garage, and patio of some compliant parent’s house for months at a time.</p>

<p>The same kid who chose Group 1 activities over Group 2 also dropped his university lab research project for a cool job involving computers and the chance to make $$$.</p>

<p>So, do choices like this make a difference or not in the long run? In the case of the kid in question, it is hard to say. Because he wanted a merit scholarship, he concentrated on schools that offered large merit awards, which of course excludes most of those schools people on CC consider Tops. He was quite successful at admissions and merit awards, but was not accepted at MIT, the one and only non-merit award super-select to which he applied. (I’m not getting into why that might have been, although his “stats” were at the top even for MIT.)</p>

<p>This particular kid would have considered it akin to selling his soul to trade the fun team stuff for the individual, heavy book-prep awards. His parents wouldn’t trade the house full of budding engineers and scientists and just plain fun kids for anything, definitely not for Super Elite U admission.</p>

<p>(BTW, just in case it matters, the main EC of the kid in question is not included in the competition stuff, but it too involved heavy time commitment to an activity that few would consider a good choice for elite school preparation.)</p>

<p>Choices, choices. The high school years matter, big time, to overall development. I have a rather expansive definition of ‘overall development’.</p>

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That makes plenty of sense, but there may be other kids who are more on the fence about which route they’d enjoy more, and who really, really want to go to MIT. They might make a different choice. I guess I’m not as negative as some others about looking at some of these choices strategically.</p>

<p>I will also add that we tend to understate parents’ roles in determining what a kid’s passion turns out to be. There are many, many kids who are passionate about playing the violin or the piano–many fewer who are passionate about playing the accordion or the bagpipes. I don’t think that’s because all those kids made a thoughtful choice of what instrument to be passionate about. Some of them probably did–especially the ones who changed instruments–but a lot of them ran with the opportunities provided by their parents. That’s why I think it’s important to provide a range of opportunities for kids when they are in their most exploratory phases, including opportunities that may not be entirely mainstream.</p>

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<p>I’m sorry, but this is an outdated attitude that I haven’t seen since the days when cheerleaders were just cute, “popular” girls who supported male athletic endeavors. It is precisely this kind of attitude that would lead me to regard the idea of that a D of mine wanted to be a cheerleader with dismay. (If I had a D, which I don’t, unfortunately.)</p>

<p>Nowadays girls are celebrated for their OWN athletic accomplishments, and “envy” doesn’t come into the picture.</p>

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<p>I think it’s fair to say that some ECs will have negative connotations for some people, and some of those people may be on admissions committees at some colleges. This may vary by college and by region of the country. If, for example, your principle EC is a big-game hunting club, that may bring a different reaction at Reed College and at Washington and Lee. Whether it should bring a different reaction is really beside the point. Other ECs that may play differently with different people include Scouting, cheer, some sports, clubs having to do with collections or gaming, and more. This is reality, because the world is as it is, not as we would like it to be. This doesn’t mean that you change your ECs, but you might give some careful thought about how you craft your application to Reed.</p>

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<p>I have no real feelings one way or the other on cheerleaders or cheerleading as an EC (I tried out for cheerleading myself as a teenager, but didn’t make it), but I have to agree with Consolation - whatever I feel, it certainly isn’t “envy.” That takes me to the whole weird world of the Texas-cheerleader-mom movie (the one who killed her daughter’s rival’s mother, or something like that). </p>

<p>At least in my world, the cheerleaders don’t really even have the uber-status they had years and years ago - partly because girls have so many other activities / sports they can excel in.</p>

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<p>Hunt makes a good point - there is a difference between “I could enjoy two things, but I think this one is better for my long term goals” and “I really don’t enjoy X at all, but I’ll suffer through it because I hope it will get me to Elite U.”</p>

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<p>I could see lots of great essays that riff off the concept of being a cheerleader — motivation –> how I motivated someone to do something; community; sometimes it’s time to sit back and let others have the glory; or even funny anecdotes told in a compelling voice that really have nothing to do with how “good” of a cheerleader (technically speaking) the girl is or how many cheerleading awards the team wins.</p>

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<p>I guess I disagree that undergraduate college by itself should be the “long term goal”, and that is what this thread is talking about: what is, or is not, required to get into a certain kind of college/university. </p>

<p>To me, that is short-sighted.</p>

<p>I am not suggesting that there are no important choices, and that it should not matter at all what kids do or don’t do during high school. I am reacting against what I have seen too much of while raising my kids: parents who have lost sight of the fact that 14-18 are important years for the overall development of interests, academic skills, social skills and personality. What they consider short-term sacrifice of time with friends and fun activities looks to me like wasted years of personal growth.</p>

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<p>midmo, my older son made exactly the same choices! With the same results too. :slight_smile: We were all for it, as we saw Science Olympiad (and academic team) as sociable activities and he was not a sociable kid. He dropped our science research program in favor of doing what he wanted with computer programming. I think the reason he didn’t get into MIT was that he had no non-science non-academic looking ECs and they were looking for more well-rounded kids. I’d never have told him to take up a sport or do more individual contests, even if I thought it would have improved his odds. I’m pretty sure that the opportunities we gave him to mess around with computers are what made him so desirable.</p>

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<p>^^^yes, mathmom, I’ve noticed before that your son and mine have some similarities. And they are both doing pretty well so far with the ‘long term’ goals, it seems, as least as far as landing good jobs post-graduation.</p>

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<p>Funny that cheer has taken over this thread. My D is at camp right now trying out for “All Star Cheerleader.” A bit of individual designation, but folks not in the cheer world wouldn’t know what it was.</p>

<p>As for cheering in college…we have one girl currently being recruited. I think she is 4’8" and weighs maybe 80 lbs. Larger (e.g. normal sized) girls don’t have as much appeal for colleges. Plus, most girls’ bodies can’t hold out for four more years of cheer. My D is on tumbling rest and PT right now…I don’t even know if she’ll be able to cheer all the way thru HS.</p>

<p>My older D’s essay was on what she learned being a drill team officer that will prepare her for the business world. When I started thinking about it, I realized that the drill team officers have the most intense position of leadership in the school…truly leading the team (teaching and cleaning dances, etc.) 2+ hours a day, 5 days a week plus many Saturdays, from late July through late April.</p>

<p>As for the social status of cheerleaders, I agree that it’s not much. This year’s prom queen was the awesome beast of a soccer goalie…no cheerleaders were even nominated.</p>

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<p>Hm, reading this thread makes me think how on earth my D got into USNWR top ten colleges (not only that, but the offers came along with some honors like the McCormick thingy at NW, Duke scholarship etc)? She has no hooks and she’s not URM. She didn’t win any national or state awards. Her ECs are so lame, compared to cc :). Just three plain school clubs, playing an instrument (no state or anything honors, just playing… out of tune), delivered flowers at our local hospital, did well academically. That’s all. I am not trying to make any point here, just so parents 2012 and later know that it’ll be alright for your C.</p>

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<p>We could not have made S1 do sports, drama or music if we had tied him to the goalposts/stage. :smiley: That stuff is not in his DNA. He <em>did</em> join the online newspaper staff, and while he did not love reporting, he was an excellent editor, proofreader and news hound. Also took his techie skills there, where they were put to great use. I will say that every college who interviewed him asked about the journalism stuff – my conclusion is that it was a pretty unusual EC for a guy whose life experiences otherwise screamed GEEK so thoroughly.</p>

<p>S2 did not have much in the way of awards. The humanities does not have as many opportunities as math/science, and the IB workload precluded making time for the few things that were available. Had leadership in one EC and a lot of community service focused on two unusual activities. He was also involved in a helmet sport (VERY unusual for IB students at his school). He insisted on balance in his life, and that came with a price. But he knew that, and we knew that, and he focused on schools that would embrace his POV vs. those who would want him to fit a particular mold.</p>

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<p>JVTDAD - my own kids had similar success (though in the interest of full disclosure, S was legacy at a top school and used that card). I fully believe that “bright normal” kids who just seem like nice people who do interesting things are often a breath of fresh air and appealing in their own way versus the coached-within-an-inch-of-their-life geniuses who have dutifully checked all the right leadership boxes. It’s like cleansing the palate to admit those kids.</p>