<p>What would happen if someone had no extracurriculars at all?
How much would that affect the admission process?</p>
<p>For top boarding schools I’m sure having no extracuricular would pretty much kill your acceptance chances. Schools are looking for kids to be unique, being a study nerd is not going to cut it.</p>
<p>What do high and low SSAT scores tell boarding schools?</p>
<p>They determine if a schools grades are inflated. It is very hard to compare an “A” at one school to an “A” at another school. However it is much easier to compare SSAT scores because everybody takes the same test.</p>
<p>sorry for the original post its very late and I realize it was very confusing</p>
<p>For the EC question: yes, almost always, that would be the case. Occasionally, there might be a student who was truly academically remarkable–a prodigy of some sort–who didn’t have any ECs that gets admitted, but it quite rare.</p>
<p>Also keep in mind that EC’s don’t have to be “prep school traditional.” It can be anything that you’ve done outside of the school day - volunteering, a hobby, a non-traditional sport, music, etc.<br>
some of the applications ask about interests in the arts, sports, etc. That is a place to express your desire to learn and try different things.</p>
<p>Boarding school is a 24/7 experience. At a private day school I can see there being some flexibility in terms of ignoring the absence of ECs. Not at boarding school. We know that the student sleeps from 11-7. Then the academic portion of the day runs from 7-3. But you’re going to have to account for what goes on from 3-11 each and every day that will have the applicant engaged and participating in the community.</p>
<p>An applicant that’s been studying hard during that entire time to keep up grades may be using the time productively, but that applicant doesn’t compare favorably to the applicant that is keeping up with work on a tighter schedule while also juggling other activities.</p>
<p>An applicant that’s been playing World of Warcraft in the evening while coasting to A’s may be very bright, but the choices that that applicant has made with his or her spare time don’t compare favorably to those with ECs.</p>
<p>Off the top of my head, I think – and this is purely my guess – the four most important aspects of ECs that an Admissions Committee will look for are</p>
<p>1) Activities that show the student is multidimensional and not just an academic star;</p>
<p>2) Activities that dovetail – either directly or through shared skills inventories – with the established offerings of the school;</p>
<p>3) Activities that require some degree of socialization and create or build on a sense of community (including, but not limited to, representing a school or church or other community on a team).</p>
<p>4) Activities that demonstrate an applicant’s ability to set personal goals, accept challenges, achieve at high levels (or increasing levels) and remain focused and committed over time.</p>
<p>Few activities fit all of the above. Few fit none of the above. They don’t have to be structured, plug’n’play activities either. ECs don’t have to be school-sponsored activities. They don’t even have to be part of an established program. They can be totally off-the-wall. But if you want to impress someone in an admissions department that your child’s time from 3-11 (and on weekends) is well spent and fits in with the boarding school experience, then I would try to explain how that time fits in to the above features that make an EC activity desirable to a boarding school community.</p>
<p>A note of caution. Most people posting on this board seem to be either students, current applicants, or parents. In other words, this is mostly guesswork, and could be dead wrong.</p>
<p>I would not obsess about extracurricular activities. It depends so much upon who you are. If you come from a school which offers a huge array of activities, in which you can easily participate, then not having any extracurricular activities will not help you.</p>
<p>However. There are family and school situtations which make participating in extracurricular activities difficult, if not impossible. Theoretically, let’s say you’re the son of a Nebraska farmer, you’re needed after school to pull your weight on the farm, and your school has few activities and no transportation beyond the standard bus run. Oh, and your teachers are very likely to write recommendations such as, “It’s a shame this brilliant mind won’t have the challenge it needs, he’s a credit to his family, and I wish our school had more to offer him,” I wouldn’t sweat the lack of extracurriculars.</p>
<p>Agreed, periwinkle – especially the part about this being an exercise in the blind leading the blind.</p>
<p>However you define extracurriculars I’m convinced that you* do* need to have a good idea of what you do from 3-11 and on weekends and should account for that time – if only to survive the interview. sbergman posted here that one Ivy League college engineering professor (dean?) thought the best engineers were the kids from the farm who rebuilt tractors and tinkered with machinery. If you’ve got something like that, I’d consider that an EC…as a hobby, pastime, avocation, etc. Just because it’s not something that has open tryouts, league signups or a faculty advisor doesn’t mean it’s not an EC.</p>
<p>If you’re doing little more than playing World of Warcraft, I would sweat it. If you’re doing something different with your time – and explain it – I wouldn’t sweat that it’s not the usual stuff other kids list. If you’re doing nothing to speak of, I’d sweat it. If you’re fully engaged in some way during that time, I wouldn’t sweat it.</p>
<p>Working on your parent’s farm is considered an extracurricular. Adcoms certainly would value it.</p>
<p>That’s why I said to think “outside the box” about EC’s and said there are many things that are not “traditional” that can be considered and valued. </p>
<p>Also, I really think you don’t have to have tons of them.</p>
<p>uhmmmmm, what about just being on the computer researching stuff you’re interested in? and reading? could those be EC’s? hmmmmmm, i think i’d be sweating it now/</p>
<p>Speaking of video games like World of Warcraft, do boarding schools sanction those kind of things? Just curious.</p>
<p>Okay.
I am not musical or sporty.
Could I say in my stuff that I play a little bit of this and that and that I enjoy swimming??</p>