ECs - depth vs breadth for top tier schools

Parents Forum
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<p>There have bee many discussions on this board about "whether my ECs are good enough." Instead of hijacking those threads, I would like to start another one, using D2 as an example.</p>

<p>She is a rising sophmore in high school. She finished well in 9th grade, all A and A+ except for 2 A- in math and science. While doing practice tests for SAT, she is getting into mid 700s in reading and writing, and mid 600 for math. She is a strong writer (A+ in english), but weaker in math and science. Her primarily EC is ballet. She dances between 12-20 hours a week, depending on the season. She has been dancing since 3, like so many young girls out there. In the summer she is usually away at ABT ballet intensives. ABT is a very selective and intense program. They dance from 9-5, M-F, sometimes with evening rehersals. She is not looking to be a professional ballet dancer, but it is her passion. She also likes to write, she started to write for the school paper in the middle school. She is looking to take on more of a major role at her school paper, maybe even be the editor her senior year. Her school's work is very rigorous and she takes hardest courses offered. With all of that, it really doesn't leave her with too much time to do anything else (volunteer, clubs, sports). She doesn't do dance competition because her ballet teacher does not believe in it. She doesn't do sports, hence no national award there either. </p>

<p>Her older sister, with EC skewed toward ballet, didn't do as well as we thought she would have with over 4.0 GPA. I am wondering now if D2 has aspiration of getting into top tier schools, would she be better off to focus less on ballet, and maybe spend more time doing volunteer work (not that she's never had interest before, but just didn't have the time. She loves animals - volunteer at an animal shelter), join more clubs at school, submit essays for competition to get awards. If it's up to her, she would want to spend 100% of her time on ballet because that's what she loves.</p>

<p>I am just thinking out loud. I am interested in people's view on this. The discussion doesn't have to focus on my D2. She is just an example, with lopsided interest in ballet.</p>

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<p>Our kids had a core interest in theater, which was very time-consuming. Their other activities branched out from there into other realms, for example, one summer S-1 found employment at a daycamp, as aide in a dramatic specialty program that integrated mentally disabled and mainstream students through dramatic improvisation exercises together. He was lucky, in that the dramatic producer he acted for was also starting this program, so one thing led to another. He really cared about it all, a lot. </p>

<p>I feel his apps were stronger because the EC section wasn’t just one drama production after another. Rather, it showed him applying his core interest laterally into other realms. He didn’t plan it; it just fell into place, but then when it was time to write the apps, there were many connections to discuss among his EC’s. </p>

<p>By analogy, if your D wants to do “volunteer service” and can position herself to assist as a dance coach in an afterschool program for less privileged children, that might be mightier for her than, for example, volunteering in a hospital gift shop (which would be relevant for some other student considering a future major in small business or health-related). Same number of hours, but better focus.</p>

<p>Life doesn’t always come up with such connected opportunities, but she might be able to initiate them. If she has that dance training and passion for it, there are numerous volunteer pathways to envision. She might, for example, entertain at a nursing home; start and manage a corps of 2-3 friends to do that (“leadership”); or do wheelchair dancing with healthy disabled people of any age (great new activity - google it).</p>

<p>Not that any of this is essential. If she wants to diversify herself by volunteering, then she should do so. I’m just saying she has something to offer beyond the ordinary, and rather than compete with her power as a dancer, could complement it.</p>

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<p>oldfort, maybe a read through this may help a bit. <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/738525-how-strong-music-ec.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/738525-how-strong-music-ec.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Son had a half dozen peers from different high schools and socio-economic backgrounds, fairly equal stellar stats, test scores. 2 who didn’t make it were valedictorians, academic awards, multiple EC’s. The 4 who were accepted were all conservatory level musicians, with 90% of EC’s music related. Volunteer activity was also music centered. None applied as a music major. One I think was a legacy. None were URM’s.</p>

<p>While it doesn’t tell you anything, I found it interesting. Seemed like an odd co-inky dink. And it goes back a few admission cycles (5 or more), and seems things have gotten tougher.</p>

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<p>pay3tuitions - D2 also loves children (anything small), teaching ballet or dance at some after school program would definitely interest her.</p>

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<p>Maybe I’m off-base, but if she really wants to dance 12-20 hours a week and only do the school paper besides that, I’m not sure that’s so terrible. Given that the tippy-top schools are crap-shoots anyway, shouldn’t you let her be herself?</p>

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<p>S2 has a similar profile as your daughter. He is a rising junior with a list of musical accomplishments and is/has been a member of numerous youth symphonies. Along with a strong GPA/test scores, his EC “work” centers around music: Drama club at school - “Pit Principal”, playing at charity fund raisers like Activate the Cure, and performing with others at a local senior center. </p>

<p>At times the demands of music get him close to the burnout point. Since it is likely that he won’t pursue music in college, we’ve encouraged him to add a few things to his plate that are non-music related. Some sports, (almost exclusively JV - less time consuming), and an ongoing and expanding business now fill up his schedule.</p>

<p>I am particularly dismissive of the Chances Threads that have EC lists that look like the phone book. But I also think some diversification from one all-consuming EC presents a more balanced profile. Whether that is something the top tier schools are interested in is beyond me. I’ve yet to divine any consistent admissions logic from watching where students do and don’t get in. </p>

<p>The more time I spend on CC the more the admissions process feels like a scene out of Macbeth. Instead of eye of newt, toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog it’s big GPAs, High test scores, big essays and ECs galore.</p>

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<p>I failed to mention in my post above these were Ivy admits. Please excuse my “duh” moment for omitting that salient point.</p>

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<p>violadad - I kind of got that.:)</p>

<p>She was also taking violin and piano lessons, but decided to drop violin because of time constraint. She likes piano, but not conservatory quality. Since D2 is a second child, she has been doing what she likes - picked up piano when she saw her older sister play, and decided to try violin in second grade when she found my old violin(s). She actually got a seat at our state youth orchestra for violin, but decided not to pursue it because of time also. Now she is 2 years away from college application, I am wondering if it should have been more.</p>

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<p>Let’s clarify what you’re talking about for top tier schools…only HYPMS? </p>

<p>You indicated your older daughter didn’t do as well as you had hoped…but isn’t she at Cornell?</p>

<p>There are plenty of kids with perfect grades, great test scores, national awards and impressive EC’s who don’t get into HYPMS. And some who do get into HYPMS. There are also kids who excel in one or two EC’s and get in, and kids who don’t. </p>

<p>Her interests are healthy and productive. Your child’s passion is ballet (she would dance all day if you let her) and writing, so let her do those two. Maybe you can get her to try to find another passion that you think will make her more impressive to HYPMS…but it’s not likely it will be a tipping point. </p>

<p>Is she a happy kid? Does she really like the things she does now? If so, don’t push her into other things because you think it will mean an admission to HYP…or wherever else you’re thinking of.</p>

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<p>Okay take my son, top student (8 out of a class of ca. 700), 1570/1600 SAT, 2400 for 3 SAT 2s. Complete computer nerd. He did two school ECs: Science Olympiad (and was lucky to be part of a strong team that made it to states so that he had a chance to win medals at the state level), and Academic Team (which went to Nationals, but honestly that was a joke). His real EC was computer programming. I think it was helpful that he did many different things - taught himself, freelance work, programming for science research and volunteer work. He still got plenty of rejections though - because face it, the competition is fierce at those top 10 on the USNWR list. </p>

<p>If your daughter loves dance I don’t see a problem with that, but maybe she could find a way to be giving as well as taking. i.e. not just performing, but helping others through dance. If her plate is full already, than I wouldn’t sweat it, I feel like kids to some extent get into the colleges they deserve to get into.</p>

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<p>I think what your D is doing is FINE. Ballet is her passion and colleges like seeing kids involved in depth in their passion. I would not do activities with the idea of “what do I need to do to get into college?” However, your D could choose to diversify her activities right within her field of interest. It is not a problem that there are no competitions to win (our dance studio did not believe in dance teams either). Your D could try to be an assistant dance teacher at her studio. She could look into teaching ballet to kids in an afterschool program where dance is not available to children. She could opt to form a little dance troupe that takes their performances to a certain type of community…retirement or nursing homes, underpriveleged children, or into elementary schools for assemblies. Or their little dance company can organize performances in the community to raise money for a cause they feel strongly about. Also, if your D loves to write, she likely could be involved in that and do dance too…either school paper, writing contests, or some other type of writing endeavor where she makes the hours for herself around her dance schedule. There is no need to add sports or clubs. Your D should continue with her interest areas and simply take initiative to contribute and accomplish what she can in those endeavors. Just taking classes in dance is good but these other facets of pursuit take it further.</p>

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<p>Our youngest daughter is also a dancer, and I understand the demands of ballet. Your daughter has performed at a very high level, academically, especially considering the time constraints she has, and she already has another interest: writing. She sounds amazing.</p>

<p>Frankly I think top colleges look for authenticity. Your daughter’s passion for ballet, and for writing, are clearly authentic.</p>

<p>I think they also love to see students pursue their artistic passion to the max. Kids who took weekend classes at our local city’s conservatory, including performance, theory and history almost all got into Ivy League schools, for instance. None of these classes counted in high school, but were taken to deepen skills. Our oldest daughter dropped all other activities in senior year and focused on music, and it worked out really well.</p>

<p>You are lucky that your daughter has academic skills that enable her to do so well at school, while she dances so many hours. Our youngest daughter is a “slow processor” and has had a very hard time mixing dance and school. This year she is not going to even do senior year at high school, but will dance in the mornings, and take a community college course or two. She has no interest in college at all. (And I know that this makes my daughter quite different from yours in terms of aspirations, but your daughter is doing the same amount of dance now.)</p>

<p>The way I have handled her passionate interest in dance/ballet, is that several times a year I ask her, “Would you like to try some art classes?” (she is good at art/design), or “Wouldn’t you like to have a year that is a more normal experience?” I think that with a path ahead of her that is incredibly difficult, I need to hear a nearly absolute answer to these types of questions. There has to be enough will behind the dance to counter the pressure I might apply in the other direction.</p>

<p>So, once she puts her hands on her hips and says, “No, dance is what I do,” I feel I can relax and stay out of it.</p>

<p>Coming up with these little jobs that are dance related strike me as false, if it is just to make her resume look better. If an opportunity comes up that interests her, in an of itself (not for college applications), then great. Unless she needs the money of course!</p>

<p>Otherwise, I would leave her alone and give her a lot of support, because, for anyone who knows the rigors of dance training, it seems your daughter has already achieved the unachievable: ballet training along with the most demanding school classes and good grades!</p>

<p>Congratulations on your daughter, who is clearly mature enough to come up with her own activities, and will do fine wherever she ends up.</p>

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<p>She is a very happy child. She has mentioned she would be interested to see if she could get into Yale, it is the only school she has talked about as a very high reach. I think as someone mentioned, getting into a school like Yale is a crap shoot anyway. We will stay the course, maybe suggest to her to use her ballet to start some program for young kids if she would like. </p>

<p>As a second child, she is less managed. Sometimes I feel not enough attention is paid to her, but maybe it’s healthier.</p>

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<p>These dance related activities are not false if the student is genuinely interested in doing these things. I would never suggest doing any of them to “look good for college.” I also have a child in the performing arts. She (nor her sister, who also did a bunch of performing arts plus other areas) ever sat down and discussed, “hmmm, what should I take up for college admissions???” That said, there were things they did in their field beyond taking lessons and classes because they WANTED to. That’s all I was saying. I was saying the child doesn’t need to add new activities. She could add none or if she wants to pursue something, it could be right in her current area of passion. For example, D2 took voice, dance and acting lessons and was in theater productions (sometimes more than one production at a time)…and for dance, just those classes were 13 hours per week and far from home…but anyway, she wanted to create her own shows and created original musical theater revues that she produced, directed, musical directed, choregraphed, and performed in at her school. This had never been done before and was entirely student run and she was the creator and orchestrator of every aspect of these shows (did it for two years) raising money for charities. These were huge undertakings. She wanted to do it and loved it and these were succesful events. These were in tenth and eleventh grades. She would have done these even if she never applied to college. Once she got to college, she never stopped doing these things and musically directed shows in and outside of school and eventually coposed her own original musical put on upon graduation from college and later produced at a small off Broadway theater venue this summer. So, she is still doing this…but keeps taking it further. This was on top of her own training and production work as a singer/actor/dancer. It is an offshoot, if you will. But it has involved a lot of initiative and drive and leadership at increasing levels, and started with her early initiatives of this sort back in grade school come to think of it! So, it was not done as fake or for college admissions. But my point is that she went beyond taking classes and being in shows (involving even more hours than oldfort mentions) and led activities in her area of passion. She wanted to though. She also was choreographer for her tap dance troupe at our studio and my other D was asked to take over as teacher of a tap dance class for a semester (due to personal issue for the real teacher) for a middle school aged dance class. So, I am not meaning to invent things to do but if one is passionate about a field, there are significant ways to be involved beyond taking classes. Since oldfort was asking, I am putting that out there as opposed to joining misc. clubs and activities (brought up in the thread initially) in order to show more accomplishments or some such. In any case, I don’t think oldfort’s D needs to do more. I think she shows depth of her involvement in ballet and over the summers too but since many have such a background who apply to schools like Yale, she should be aware that someone else may take ballet even further than simply training in it. I know girls from here who have created dance classes at elementary school after school programs for kids who can’t travel to a dance studio or afford it and these girls went onto good colleges for dance. I don’t honestly think they did this to get into college and it was not fake and was genuine.</p>

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<p>I didn’t say that doing things like your daughter has done are fake. She also sounds amazing. I was just answering in the context of a parent posting about what she should urge her daughter to to. Your daughter apparently wanted to do those things, and came up with the ideas on her own. The original post was asking about what to add in order to appeal to admissions, and not what to add to deepen the artistic interest.</p>

<p>That said, I am totally with the original poster in that feeling that we should “do more” for our youngest, who do indeed tend to be undermanaged. I know exactly how she was feeling when she posted, so I am not criticizing the post, but might have posted the same thing myself at some point. Especially for parents of dancers (and maybe musicians), the intensity of one passion can cause doubts: our kids can be “dance nuns.”</p>

<p>Of course, when any teenager extends an artistic interest to the community or to younger children or the elderly, whatever, it is a wonderful thing. But the original poster’s kid, like yours, sounds amazing already and can probably do really well just following her own interests and ideas at this point.</p>

<p>I think that the original poster just wanted reassurance because it sounds like she has a lot of confidence in her daughter, and that the fall is just bringing those doubts about the limitations of a dancer’s life to the fore, as it does in our house as well.</p>

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<p>^^^Good post, compmom and I agree. I know you were not talking about my D when mentioning doing activities that are fake. And I agree that the OP is worried that her D is “just” doing ballet or dance and needs more activities maybe and I agree, she does NOT. Her D has depth and a long term commitment to an area of passion and even accomplishments such as getting into ABT summer intensives (and may have accomplishments I don’t know about such as playing key roles in a ballet or something of that sort). I don’t think any kid should come up with activities to get into college. They should just do what they wish to do for its own sake. I just was trying to tell the OP that she need not look or worry about adding new activities. Her D may wish (and this is totally up to her) to pursue things she wants to do right within her current area of passion. But these should only occur due to her own desire to want to do them for their own sake and not to get into college. I think her EC is already strong in fact. It is true that for elite schools, there will be many who have done dance or ballet in depth for years. And it is true that what might stand out is some other accomplishment or initiative where the student has done something significant in that field. But this is not necessary. I do think colleges recognize and like those who take initiative and start something or lead something. Meanwhile, they also look kindly upon a long term EC to which the student has devoted a lot of time and is a clear passion. Sometimes, for elite schools, it will also be considered what the student accomplished in the endeavor or contributed or led and so on. In any case, intensive dance is a very strong EC and one need not be in a long list of ECs. I think WHAT you do in your EC endeavors…your contributions to it and accomplishments within it also matter, beyond the participation in itself. But whatever is done, should be done for its own sake and not to get into college. Nobody should feel that they must start something up to look good on the application. How you stand out from the next kid in a competitive admissions process is something to be aware of, but doesn’t mean you have to change anything you are currently doing. I think the child should take the lead in any case.</p>

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<p>I want to add that the OP suggested that perhaps her D should do LESS ballet and take on volunteer work or school clubs. I DO NOT suggest that!! Why cut down on what she loves? Why add anything she is not genuinely interested in either? However, she said that D dances 12-20 hours per week. Perhaps that is all the time she can devote to EC’s, not sure. I will say that my kids’ EC endeavors took up more hours than the OP’s dance classes (which my kids were also in and at a distance in terms of the commute, as well as the distance to their other stuff too). I believe it is possible to fit in doing something else, such as an extension…pardon the pun…with her dance interests, if she wanted to do so, without cutting back on dance classes themselves.</p>

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<p>^
Yes, your kids are amazing. That has already been established.</p>

<p>I was someone with a more varied EC background, though I did have a couple of “focus” areas (Japanese–classes, competitions, a club, and a Japanese martial art–and community service). I sometimes wonder if the random things on my app (lit club and horseback riding) hurt me, though I did have proof of “passion”/commitment in those areas (competitions, lettering, and officership). I guess I hadn’t found my real passion in high school (horrors), though I’ve since found it in college.</p>

<p>My essay mentioned my ECs–namely, Japanese–but weren’t squarely focused on them. They were well-received by adcoms.</p>

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<p>psych…just saying that I never said you had to have one area of passion. For the record, my older D had several areas, though had been involved in each one for her whole life and had accomplishments in them but she never wanted to specialize. While most will say that elite colleges want someone with depth in one or two areas of passion, my older D had depth but in many areas. In fact, her main personal app essay was all about the many sides of herself and her well roundedness and not being tied to one area of passion. My other kid had all her ECs tied to one area…performing arts (though many activities within that). I don’t think one is better than the other when it comes to college admissions. If you are into several things, so be it. If you are into one main thing, fine. I think what matters more is what you do in that endeavor…your contributions to it and the significance of those, any achievements, leadership, initiative and so on that are traits they want to have on campus. For selective schools, participation itself is very common and doesn’t stand out. However, I don’t think how many activities you are in matters. It is more what you do in the activity (s) and over time.</p>

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<p>I have a slightly different slant on this. I wouldn’t change the activities, but to the extent I could add some outside verification to the mix, I would. </p>

<p>If she likes to write, let her look for contests and awards in that area. This may not even mean doing anything additional. There are probably contests which involve submitting articles published in high school papers for judging. Or she may actually be interested in submitting some of the things she’s written to various contests. There’s the NCTE awards–are those the right initials? </p>

<p>She might be able to get some articles published in your local newspaper.Maybe she could review a professional ballet company’s performance for it. Is there some sort of dance magazine that would accept submissions from a young dancer? Could she write something along the lines of “What you need to know before you apply to ABT” from a student’s point of view and get it published? Or just write a good description of what it’s like to participate and see if ABT itself might be willing to include it on its website or in its promotional materials and credit her for it? </p>

<p>These are just some thoughts of how she might tie her interests together and make her stand out a bit from all the other dancers and writers she’ll be competing against.</p>

<p>I’m thinking an admissions officer might sit there and think, “hmm…we’ve got a lot of dancers and we’ve got a lot of writers, but do we have any other dancers who have written about dance ?”</p>