<p>Does anyone have insight as to how much, if at all, a selective school such as Yale values work experience? If an applicant has been unable to participate at an in-depth level (such as unpaid science research, mock trial) in other ECs due to significant job responsibilities, how is that weighed vis-a-vis awards for math, science, sports, debate ECs?</p>
<p>Despite claims of wanting to put together a diverse class, I'm wondering whether it's more lip service when a school claims to consider work experience on equal footing as, say, success in an academic extracurricular pursuit. Anyone know of successful applicants to top schools who had paid job experience in lieu of intensive school or community ECs?</p>
<p>The term “extracurricular activities” covers an enormous amount of ground. We are interested in whatever a student does: in addition to school extracurricular activities and athletics, students can tell us of significant community, employment, or family commitments. There are many who spend a great deal of time helping to run their household, preparing meals and caring for siblings or making money with a part-time job to help the household meet expenses.</p>
<p>Unfortunately many schools have had to curtail or eliminate extracurricular activities and athletics, or they charge fees for participation. In addition, many students cannot afford expensive musical instruments or athletic equipment — or have families without the resources to pay for lessons, summer programs and the transportation networks necessary to support such activities.</p>
<p>Admissions Committees keep these factors in mind as they review applications, and are concerned most of all to know how well students used the resources available to them. Extracurricular activities need not be exotic — most are not — and substance is far more important. A student who has made the most of opportunities day-to-day during secondary school is much more likely to do so during college and beyond. This applies to academic life as well as extracurricular activities.</p>
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<p>“One of the best [recommendation] letters we ever received over the years was written by the school’s custodian who supervised the student in the school’s work program under very difficult circumstances, when everyone was tired at the end of the school day. The letter supported the other positive information in the application about how the student always made everyone around him better — and it made up for sparse recommendations from the over-worked teachers and counselors at that school. The strong personal qualities and character noted by the custodian were confirmed by the remarkable difference the student made to others during his college career and the difference he continues to make today.”</p>
<p>One of my main ECs which got me into multiple Ivies: dishwasher at a restaurant. Not much leadership potential or promotions or academic enlightenment.</p>
<p>Schools like Yale realize that some families need their teens to actually earn money versus go to lacrosse practice or go to Math Club meetings or go build playgrounds for brown people in South America or develop some disease fundraiser.</p>
<p>Students with deep commitments outside the classroom, whether they be organized activities, an after school job, or some personal avocation, show that they have the reserve to do exceptionally well in the most rigorous high school classes and don’t need to use all of their time after school studying. One would think that they would also add more to any college community lucky enough to get them. Not only are exotic or academic EC’s not required but the first generation college applicant doing minimum wage work is probably advantaged in admissions compared to the affluent kid doing mission trips to Guatemala (transcripts/tests/LOR otherwise equal).</p>
<p>Thank you all for your replies. While in theory it seems work experience may be valued, I’d be interested to see how many accepted applicants have work as a primary out-of-school activity, i.e., 20-25 hrs per week. Also, how does an applicant present such experience to his or her advantage (without sounding all “poor me…”)?</p>
<p>I’m wondering the same thing – is recognition of work experience borne out by the actual admissions results? I don’t have time for a thorough review, but quickly skimming through some of this year’s early action results seems to indicate successful applicants with paid jobs as a primary EC have a hook such as geographic diversity (rural Mississippi) or URM. I admit this is not a scientifically valid study by any means!
Perhaps a letter of reference from a supervisor would be useful. Personally I would not consider myself poor, but our family budget does not allow for a $1500 fee for crew participation or tuition for local college classes. Plus working full time during summers precludes participation in unpaid science research for competitions, sports and drama camps and such. But I certainly would not want to present myself as disadvantaged by any means – we’re able to pay our rent every month, have sufficient food for the 5 of us, have a (very old) car, just absolutely nothing extra for vacation, trips, meals out, smartphone data plans and so on.</p>
<p>For me another factor has been finding available time to devote to thoughtful writing of essays, with my work schedule and a time-consuming course load this year. I therefore decided to apply early action to a few schools that did not have many additional essays (plus no application fee) and ended up with some significant merit awards. However, I’d still like to at least try for Yale and Brown, as I felt a much deeper intellectual connection when I visited, as if I would fit in better, so to speak.</p>
<p>OK, off now to write some essays – had the gift of a half day today because of the holiday…</p>