If your ECs aren’t primarily directed towards your major of interest (and are instead more “diverse”) or to the specific college within the university that you are applying to, is that a disadvantage? How would you make up for this in essays and other parts of the application?
You don’t need to “make up” for having diverse ECs. It is totally fine to explore different interests in HS. Here are two things I’ve heard from multiple admissions officers that may put your mind at ease a bit…
–They are looking to create a well balanced class. That will include some students who are well rounded and some students with very targeted areas of interest. It is totally fine if you are in this first group.
–Unless you are applying for a specific program or school (ex. nursing, engineering, business) then not a ton of attention is paid to the major you put on your application. I’ve heard it said that about half of the applicants apply undecided and of those who come in with a major about half of them switch it while at college.
Many countries outside the US shunt teens into certain career fields (medicine, engineering, etc.). In the US, most colleges don’t even require you to declare a major before the end of Sophomore year.
You don’t need to be a “impassioned pre-engineer” or whatever from 15 years onwards to get into a solid school. What top colleges want is 1) hungry scholars – who want to learn, not just get a job and 2) people who better the communities around them.
@happy1 and @T26E4 would you still say this (meaning not having a disadvantage of being more “well-rounded”) applies if you were applying to specific programs such as Huntsman at Wharton or Undergrad Business schools?
Be great at math and other analytical classes (stats, physics). Work a job. Have a great transcript and test scores. Focused ECs? Not that important. AN often forgotten attribute? Be likeable. It’ll come out in your teacher recs.
DS applied to engineering programs, but his ECs were all artsy, and he got into several excellent ones. Granted, the ECS were pretty high level (All-State and All-Eastern Chorus, high placement at Odyssey of the Mind Worlds) but they had nothing to do with engineering. He did have good but not perfect math SATs and a high GPA. Just saying that ECs unrelated to the major didn’t kill his application.
If you think about it, would you want all your engineers in your college class to all be STEM club members, robotics teammates? Or would you want some that rre into music and art and debate and…etc.etc.