Honestly, how important are ECs? Do colleges even take into consideration that you don’t spent your entire high school career just studying and actually doing something with your life?
ECs are pretty important. They allow you to show colleges what kind of a person you truly are. Whether it comes to sports, school activities, or out of school activities, they wish to see what kind of a person you really are. Of course, grades are really important, but let’s remember that even some people with perfect grades and test scores are not accepted to some universities because they were not involved in any extracurricular activities.
Depends on what kind of schools you are applying to. Your State U probably doesn’t care - it’s mostly grades, test scores and teacher recs. An EC or two just shows you aren’t a hermit and might contribute to campus life, but frankly it’s not going to matter. At highly selective schools, where everyone has close to a 4.0, high test scores and glowing recommendations, ECs are a way of differentiating students. At small LACs, where they need enough students to field a football team, keep the orchestra in violins, etc…the ECs matter. And at schools that do a holistic review, it’s another piece of data about who this person is and whether they are a good fit.
look at the common data set for the colleges that you are interested in. Some care a lot, some care, some barely do or don’t at all. There is a box in the CDS where a college indicates what they do.
How about UCs?