<p>So I'm shooting for Stanford, Ivy League, etc colleges and literally was not in a single club last year (as a freshman). However, in my sport I'm about as good as the average Division 1 athlete.</p>
<p>I don't want to do a sport in college, and Stanford's one of the very top schools so I probably wouldn't make it anyways. But will this make up for my lack of clubs?</p>
<p>PS: I plan on being in at least 2 clubs next year.</p>
<p>Clearly being a top athlete would take a tremendous amount of time, so that counts as a good EC, but only an EC, nothing more, if you have no plans on playing The question I or any adcom would have would be who says you’re that good? If you have awards and championships to go with it, so much the better, but stats alone may not be enough to impress someone not familiar with your sport, even a well-known sport.</p>
<p>Winning a high level award (e.g. state championship or something like that) in the sport would certainly be more impressive than just playing the sport at the local level, or joining a few school clubs. The same goes for other ECs or clubs. Joining the chess club at your school would be just a typical common EC. Winning a high level tournament or achieving a grandmaster level rating would attract more notice.</p>
<p>I agree that if you don’t plan to play the sport, it doesn’t matter that much unless you excelled. And you might get some pressure to join the team if you really excelled.</p>
<p>Did you just finish freshman year? If so, how do you know you’re D1 level?</p>
<p>^My sport is based on times, and I found a website that analyzes my stats. I was top 5 in my best event at high school state, but I live in one of the less competitive states.</p>
<p>How competitive would you be nationally or in a more competitive state?</p>
<p>When listing it as an EC, you can indicate your ranking in your state and nationally, with a verified source.</p>
<p>Lack of a varsity high school sport on a college application will not hurt you, but the absence of any high-level or leadership roles in extracurriculars will. Colleges will respect valid reasons for not participating, such as family responsibilities, so that the field isn’t hopelessly tilted against low-income applicants, but they would expect you or your adviser to explain why you have none. If your extracurricular resume is strong, don’t worry about sports.</p>
<p>My sport is one of the most popular Olympic sports. I’m just above 1000 in my best events nationally and top 250 in my zone (western, one of four nationwide). Definitely not good enough to be at the top athletic schools, but it should merit something.</p>
<p>Assuming that there more than 1,000 participants :), definitely include your rankings in the sport to show a high level of achievement, which counts for a lot more than mere participation.</p>
<p>The same goes for any other ECs. The most selective colleges where ECs’ importance is magnified (to distinguish between hordes of applicants who all have top-end grades, rank, and test scores) will be looking for a high level of achievement in ECs, rather than merely joining a bunch of clubs that do little besides hand out “leadership” titles.</p>
<p>Students from disadvantaged backgrounds whose time is needed to support their families (e.g. paid work, caregiving for family members, etc.) should include such activities as ECs and/or essay topics as appropriate.</p>