Extracurriculars expected from international applicants?

Hi. I am new to CC and am getting up to speed on the US college application process.

I am blown away by the lists of extracurricular activities I have seen from US high school students who are admitted to top colleges - excelling in sports, setting up non-profits, undertaking research and presenting findings at conferences, publishing in peer-reviewed journals, etc.

My D22 studies at a British high school in England and is interested in applying to US universities. She possesses a strong academic record and PSAT/SAT scores and is also a musician (attending an equivalent of Julliard’s Pre-College Division on Saturdays) but her extracurriculars outside of music are relatively sparse by American standards (but probably not so different from many/most academically-focused UK students). Accordingly, she is worried that she will be disadvantaged vs. US students when applying for university.

My question is: Do US universities expect international applicants to have similar accomplishments on extracurricular activities as domestic students?

Many thanks for your help.

“Do US universities expect international applicants to have similar accomplishments”

The short answer is “yes”.

However, if you do one thing very well, that can be a very good extracurricular activity. You do not need to have a long list of ECs. Music can be a very good EC. Doing what you want to do very well is the right approach to take.

Also, ECs do not need to be associated with a student’s high school. Working a job, looking after a sibling, volunteering at your church, or significant musical awards or abilities are all ECs. So are many other things.

I was an international student at a couple of top US schools (one for undergrad, one for a master’s), and to be honest I was blown away by the accomplishments I saw from some of the other students that I met in international students events.

Many thanks for your helpful reply, @DadTwoGirls. Over the years, my D has devoted a substantial portion of her non-school time to music (individual lessons, Saturday program, practice practice practice) and, while she has engaged in other activities, they are less significant in terms of time commitment.

Recently, D has started to reduce her musical commitments and, with the freed up time, has taken up a new sport. Although we (her parents) were a bit concerned about the timing of this change of focus, we have tried to be supportive. Importantly, D seems happier even though she’s an absolute beginner in the sport - I think she feels a bit liberated because this is an area of her life where she feels no pressure to meet (high) performance expectations.

My D is planning to apply to US and UK universities and if her change of focus makes her less competitive in the US, hopefully she’ll be able to secure a place at a good UK university (where extracurriculars have less bearing on admission).

Thanks again.

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I am not sure if your daughter is interested, but top universities in Canada also would not care much about extracurricular activities.

Thanks for the suggestion. I actually spent a year at U of Toronto during graduate school and loved the city and university. But my daughter hasn’t considered Canada as an option, even though the daughter of a close family friend just started at U of T (more accurately, started virtually as she is still stuck in her home country). DD wants to keep things simple and manageable.

Canadian universities, like U of T, are a lot simpler to apply to than US universities.

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Some are exaggerated beyond comprehensions.

Thanks. What I meant was she doesn’t want to go beyond UK and US universities.

We live overseas, and the students from our country who get accepted to Ivy League schools tend to be number one (or top 5 in the country) in their age-group for a particular extra-curricular activity. They don’t necessarily have to have done a lot of ECs, but they definitely have stood out as the absolute best in their age-group for their activity (can be sports, music, or international award in academic pursuit).

They also have been strong students academically, but haven’t been as stressed about academics as American students b/c Ivy League often wasn’t on their radar until their last year of high school (i.e. haven’t worried about rigor of class schedule, SATs, etc).

SLACs are great schools to consider because there may be fewer international applicants simply b/c they don’t have the same name-recognition overseas. I highly recommend looking into a variety SLACs to see if they might be a good fit for your D22.

Thanks. We are exploring SLACs as well as larger, better-known universities.

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