My daughter will go to the 9th grade next year, but she still has not started any extra curriculars. Her dream college is Yale/Princeton and she/I both know that along with good grades, you need amazing extra curriculars as well. Any suggestions for extra curriculars someone can quickly learn how to excel in and join competitive? (Sport, academic activity, organization) in the Bay Area
She needs to do activities that interest her, not ones for a resume. It is fine to drop the ones she doesn’t like that well. It is not a learning, but rather a doing thing. Play an instrument or sing if she likes it. Do academic clubs that she likes. Do a sport if she likes one. Forget the “amazing” and encourage her to have fun with these extras. There is so much more to life as a teen than just preparing for the future-college. As she journeys through HS she will continue to explore and mature, evolving in who she is and what she wants. Please do not pressure her.
As I just wrote in another thread, I believe that we as parents should not be looking at things in explicit terms of how they help our children gain admission to college, but should instead be focused on helping them develop into independent adults, able to support themselves, contribute to society, and live a fulfilling life. If we do that well, college admissions should take care of itself!
So help your daughter find what her passions are, and support her in pursuing and developing those interests.
If you’re deciding on “extra curriculars” based on how they will look on a college ap, you’re doing it wrong.
Also, she has a dream college(s) in 8th grade? Are you sure they’re not your dream college(s)?
Remember that she is a person, not a project in development. If she makes every decision with an eye toward elite admissions, she’ll miss out on a lot!
What does she like to do right now? During middle school, did she gravitate toward any particular activity when she wasn’t doing homework? If so, does she still enjoy that activity? Start with that. Her extracurriculars can be absolutely anything she is genuinely interested in and likes to do. If she genuinely likes to do it then she will naturally go deep with it. Have her do what she loves and the rest will take care of itself.
I agree you’re doing it backwards. Who is she? What does she like to spend her time doing? What lights the fire in her eyes? What would she like to try?
Colleges can read through applications that are designed to appeal to them. Has she visited those colleges? Does she know what she wants to major in? I think you’re getting ahead of yourself.
“Amazing extracurriculars” means that your child has developed interests and passions that make her a more interesting and dynamic person, one worth choosing over ten thousand-plus other college applicants with equal grades and test scores. If at the end of 8th grade your child truly has no extracurriculars or interests, and needs to start something NOW, then you have already lost the game. Surely she already has activities or such—sports, music, volunteering, hobbies? If your child actually has none of those, you have a bigger problem on your hands than getting in to HYPS.
A neighbor kid got into his target college (Stanford, I think) by embracing his passion- food. He began cooking and doing small catering gigs early on in high school. He was quite a good chef by his senior year.
No amazing research, science competitions, musical awards or athletic prowess. Just food.
When our kids were quite young, “extracurriculars” were any activity outside of school that involved sports, hobbies, reading, music, science (learning of some kind). The kids were encouraged to discover their interests and talents. Often learning on their own. For No. 1, access to a computer at an early age allowed him to teach himself how to use spreadsheets, to do statistics, to manage his fantasy baseball teams. For No. 2, it was low-tech: drawing, painting; she could draw what she saw, and then took art classes at a community center.
But the purpose of these activities was never “college admissions.” Sometimes it was just to get them out of the house, or to help them to find friends. #1 had no athletic talent but he liked to play soccer. #2 did have athletic talent but spent her spare time drawing and reading.
As it happened they discovered special interests and talents, some of which were “curricular,” in the sense that they contributed to school performance in math, art, writing, and so forth. By high school (10th grade) they became deeply involved in just a few organized activities at the school in which they excelled, some organized outside the school (including math competitions and art shows). These were the things that went onto the “extracurriculars” list on college applications. These were the kids’ “portfolios.”
Your daughter should be doing extra curricular activities she likes. She should NOT be doing something JUST to impress adcom.
At this point…I would also strongly encourage you and your daughter to make some lists of the characteristics she thinks she might like when she goes to college. Make this a working and flexible document. Things could very well change.
What is it that she likes about Yale and Princeton? Look for a variety of colleges that have similar characteristics…but with different levels of selectivity.
Frankly…even with the BEST extracurricular activities and best grades and best SAT or ACT scores…her chances of acceptance at Yale and Princeton are 10% or less. In the 90% rejected, there are MANY MANY MANY we’ll qualified applicants.
It’s excellent to have high goals for college…but she is in NINTH grade…and lots of things could change.
Help her develop what SHE likes…and really…that will pick up its own steam.
Well, maybe.
Some kids never find extracurricular activities they like. My son was one of them. Nothing ever clicked with him, and by halfway through his freshman year of high school he simply gave up and spent his time earning money in very routine jobs (first shelving books in the public library – something you can get hired to do at 14 in our community – and later working in a party goods store) so that he could pay for the things he wanted that my husband and I weren’t willing to pay for – mostly computer games and related equipment.
He got into his first choice college, but it was a state university. If he had wanted to try for a place like Yale or Princeton, he would have had to give up the simple little jobs and the computer games and really try to accomplish something in the world of extracurriculars.
Unlike others here, I don’t think that not liking extracurriculars means that you shouldn’t do them. If you aspire to a highly competitive college, you had better do them whether you like them or not, just as you had better take three or four years of foreign language whether you like it or not. And I don’t think there’s anything unethical about this.You don’t have to love your ECs any more than you have to love your Spanish classes.
For a student who hasn’t developed any strong interests or skills by 9th grade, I suggest making a serious commitment to community service. There are likely to be plenty of volunteer opportunities for teenagers in your community, and your daughter can make a real contribution to the community, distinguish herself by the amount of time she devotes to community service activities, and learn about her own tastes and interests at the same time. She may find a special interest along the way (perhaps in working with elderly people or in tutoring, say), and she may find leadership opportunities – for example, in a service-oriented school organization. To me, this seems more realistic than trying to excel in something like a sport or instrumental music, where many of the other kids in the activity have already been doing it for years and have achieved a level of skill that she won’t be able to match.
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I will agree that one can make great contributions in community service. Groups always welcome an extra pair of hands, but what they really welcome is someone with initiative, who sees something that isn’t being done that could be, and takes on that responsibility. Just some examples: creating a database to register new clients at a food pantry, or to keep track of inventory (incoming and outgoing), maintaining a website and doing interviews and stories to highlight the “good works,” etc.
And I don’t mean walking into a place and saying “I want to be your PR person” or “I want to create a website for you.” I mean being involved organically with the organization and seeing what is needed. It’s something that happens over time.
But again, this is if there aren’t already interests and activities that spark her interest. Neither of my kids were involved in service, but they did have developed interests that (again, organically) led them in particular directions through their high school years and beyond.
Well…I’m going to disagree with most of the folks here.
When 8th grade rolled around, I had a rule. You have to pick an EC for high school. It can be anything worthwhile, but choose carefully because no matter what, you won’t be allowed to quit. You can try other things if you want and you can add and drop them, but you have to have one MAIN EC that you’ll stick with all 4 years. My offspring knew my rule was in large part a result of my reading about college admissions. I explained that colleges wanted a real commitment to an EC. Dabbling in a dozen different things for 6 months to a year just wasn’t going to work.
A lot of people thought I was nuts. All I can say is that this plan worked really well in our household. Knowing that dropping out wasn’t a possibility, during the second half of 8th grade, my offspring really researched the possibilities available both at school and in our community and chose. I did not restrict the choice–other than to say it had to be something worthwhile. I didn’t say “Do this and you’re guaranteed to get into HYPSMC.” I did say “Do this and when it’s time to apply to college, you’ll be glad you did.”
We can’t tell you which EC your child should join. Why? Because there is no one magical EC which every kid can join and excel in. Which EC your child should join depends upon your particular child’s talents. So, let your child choose. I assure you that I’m not being humble when I say I could never have chosen as wisely for my offspring as my offspring chose.
If your child chooses wisely, even if your child does NOT get into HYPS, she won’t feel as if she “wasted” 4 years of high school doing something just to look good for college. While satisfying crazy mom’s rule was the initial reason for getting involved, my offspring’s interest was sincere. It just took a little pushing from mom to spend enough time investigating the possibilities to make a good choice.
I have a few comments:
– I am all for having kids strive to do their best but as a parent I’d do whatever I could to discourage my kid from setting his/her sights on Princeton and Yale. I would recommend that you start suggesting to your D that the goal of HS is to do as well as she can, to challenge herself, to learn, to grow, to find things she is interested in and then there will be many wonderful colleges she could attend. The people I see who get hurt by the college admission process are the ones who focus on one or two hyper-competitive schools and then don’t get in. I hate to say it but with acceptance rates well under 10% there is absolutely nothing your D can do that will guarantee admission to these schools. There is simply not enough room to accept all of the well qualified candidates.
– Princeton and Yale have very different feels, locations etc. It makes me wonder if your D has set up dream schools based on prestige more than anything else.
–The top tier schools look for students that develop interests, are leaders, are self-starters. I suggest that a blog is not the best place to find your D’s passion. She needs to focus on activities she cares about and is willing to invest herself in.
I agree that an EC with four years commitment is a fine goal. I also agree that it’s what you do with the EC that really matters. There was a kid many eons ago whose Dad posted her who was some kind of hospital volunteer. Her job was pretty much nothing, but she noticed that there were a lot of non-native speakers who were having trouble communicating with the hospital staff. She created a set of bilingual flashcards with common questions and answers. It’s this sort of initiative that really makes people sit up and notice. (This was also before smart phones made this no longer necessary!)
My kids each had two or three school based activities that they did all four years. For older son this was Science Olympiad and Academic Team, for the younger one Science Olympiad, Literary Magazine and two school orchestras. They got medals at the state level, so I am sure that helped, but for both kids it was actually probably stuff that they did outside school that set them apart. Older son was a classic computer nerd. He mostly was very-self-directed, but of course we did what we could to help. He took a university class one summer, he worked for a firm, we’d asked if he could job shadow and they eventually hired him, he took MIT open course ware, he did some game modifications, he helped a med school prof write a program that analyzed proteins and he helped in the computer lab of the senior center one summer including writing a program that helped them to optimize their shuttle bus schedule. Younger son took a hobby of origami and ended up selling earings at local galleries and craftfairs. Because I am a part time artist, I knew his stuff was good enough to sell and encouraged him to bring it in. He also got involved at the Senior Center teaching origami and giving violin concerts.
We didn’t plan these activities - they picked them then we occasionally gave a nudge if it seemed like a good idea.
I also agree it’s far too early to be setting your sights on any particular college, but if you have a kid who has always scored in the top 1 or 2 percent of their cohort, it doesn’t hurt to know what it takes. I’ve been kind of dumbfounded by my younger brother’s summer choices for his kids. They are great kids, but doing nothing because your parents have taken a long European vacation in the middle of the summer before your junior year seemed a bit surprising.
@thedaizster I’m a little skeptical that you are indeed the parent, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt…
The best thing you can do for your child right now is to make her understand that the notion of a dream school most often leads to disappointment. You daughter should realize that the odds of getting into either of those colleges, especially in a few years time, will be astronomically against her. Who knows how ridiculously low the acceptance rate will be, but it will certianly be above 90% chance that she will not get in. I agree with the other posters here ( @jonri , like your style), and “quick[ly]…learn[ing] to excel” in some kind of EC is probably not is a great way to approach this. At this stage, the most important things are maintaining good grades, discovering what is of interest, and having a fun time being a teenager. Not necessarily in that order.
I feel like I wasn’t clear, my daughter WANTS to go to Yale and her hobby/talent is singing, but along with that I needed EC recommendations that might be better for someone with less athletic qualities…also something she can pursue with interest for the most part of her life.
“but as a parent I’d do whatever I could to discourage my kid from setting his/her sights on Princeton and Yale”
hear, hear!!
OP , encouraging your kid to “dream” of colleges that are almost impossible to get into is doing her a huge disservice. She is a child. You’re the adult. Tell her that she can apply to Y or P but her chances- realistically- are close to 0%. Because they are, unless she is a legacy, recruited athlete, URM, developmental admit, or has an incredible talent that she has devoted herself to, AS WELL as being a tip top student academically.
If she is accepted it should be viewed as a gift.
Better for her to be surprised rather than disappointed when she is rejected.
It’s hard to believe that an 8th graders with a “want” to go to Yale has experienced enough, visited enough colleges, and matured enough to know that Yale is the best fit. But if her talent and interest is is singing, her ECs should demonstrate that passion. I don’t agree with others that say that whatever EC you start with in 9th grade is one that you must stick with, but I understand the need to show commitment, passion, and leadership in something. That may take a few years to find depending on the school district she comes from. If Yale is the goal though, grades are the first hurdle.