Question on ECs for recruited/committed athletes applying ED to NESCACs (or other highly selective schools). I’ve seen it mentioned elsewhere on this board that it stands to reason that athletes will have less ECs given the time requirements of their sport (recruited athletes likely play a significant amount of club, etc. in their sport.) I was going through the common app with my D the other day and looking at what she has completed- she is applying ED to a NESCAC as a supported athlete. In general, when applying to college you always hear that school likes depth and how meaningful ECs are over quantity, which of course makes sense. My D (who plays her sport literally 5-7 days a week and has for the past several years) has only a 1 or 2 ECs (as well as a job), other than her sport. One EC is very meaningful and important to her but she only just started this year, so I fear it looks like she’s “only” doing it to add to resume, application, etc. However, due to COVID, etc. she wasn’t able to do it prior to this year. Am I overthinking this?
I would definitely add the meaningful EC, even if not long-term, AOs won’t think twice that it’s not authentic.
I know you didn’t ask, but something I frequently see is athletes underestimating the average weekly hours reported on the CA activities section. Club and HS teams can be different activities, as can a serious injury rehab such as Tommy John or ACL surgery. Make sure to include all hours…practices, games, tournaments, captains’ meetings, weight room training/lifting, speed and agility training, travel, virtual activities during covid, etc. 25 hours per week during the season is not too many, 30+ could be too high, at least during the school year.
Lastly the CA Activities should be in order of most meaningful on down.
question about reporting hours on the common app- as far as I can tell, the common app asks how many hours per week, and how many weeks per year. i have a club that i participate in for a specific event in track that is year round. however, in the summer and fall, when i am not in season for school track, i attend 3-4 practices a week for 3 hours (usually 3 in the summer plus a 6ish hour meet commitment almost every weekend in the summer), but in the winter, we practice at an indoor facility that is difficult to get to and we don’t have that many practice sessions, so i probably only do <10 hours a week. since it’s the same activity, how would i report that as hours per week? also, for track in the state that I live in, we have an indoor and an outdoor season, diff teams, diff events, diff post seasons for both, would this be two separate activities or one?
Super helpful! Yes, I feel like she’s underestimating time. Also, she strength trains/conditions at a training facility 3 times per week and has for 3 years. I’m wondering if that should be its own activity. It’s hard, with the limit of how many you can list on the common app, to determine which to include, and order of importance…I’m assuming their sport first. Not sure where job fits in and volunteering in importance…
Good questions! I’m wondering the same thing! Looking forward to responses!
Yours is not the first application from an athlete the AO has reviewed. They know how sports work, that there are more hours during the season, fewer during the off season.
Arrange it how it makes sense to you. If you have room to list spring track separate from fall XC, do it. They are going to get it that the hs team sport is most important even if it is a 10 week season and the club sport is 30-40 weeks.
My daughter’s other ECs often had to do with the team, but she listed them separately. Habitat for Humanity with the team? LIsted as H for H build. Her awards were almost all athletic related (Scholar athlete, Letters), and then ones that meant little to anyone but the coach (outstanding defender, All Star in the region) but they were listed.
If your daughter is also submitting a resume, she can spell out some of the differences in time and achievements on the resume.
My 2 cents - agree that documenting all time related to your child’s sport is important. Other activities (imo) are important too, if your child has them. A job, volunteering, clubs would all show that your child - time permitting - is active in their community too. Of course, those hours will be significantly less vs the sport and shouldn’t be viewed as harmful.
Definitely could be separate if she has the room, or she prioritizes it higher than certain other ECs.
You can either make these two activities (summer and winter seasons) or one activity where you would average the hours across the seasons. Depends on your other Activities and how you prioritize things.
This can also be two activities, indoor and outdoor.
Common app Honors are for academic awards only, the common app question is very clear: “Do you wish to report any honors related to your academic achievements beginning with the ninth grade or international equivalent?”
So yes to scholar athlete, no to the rest. Lettering, team awards, all-star etc should be noted in the 50 character description under the appropriate Activity. Activity descriptions can be in sentence fragments, no need for full sentences.
I think @Mwfan1921 covered this well. What you’re describing sounds pretty typical for a field event athlete or perhaps sprints/hurdles. So you might end up listing varsity indoor, varsity outdoor, club summer training and competition, and fall club training with rough estimates of time spent for each.
I wouldn’t worry too much about it as I think most adcoms understand what the year looks like for recruited athletes in various sports.
Our kids listed HS Varsity separate from Club. We estimated non season workout/training and class time (competitive sports were actually a credited/graded class – ironically it was virtually impossible for varsity athletes to be val or sal bc it was an unweighted grade) and in season time, and averaged across the weeks in the entire school year).
Almost all of her awards, even all star, had an academic requirement too. She couldn’t get a letter without having a certain GPA. The athletic director at her high school would come and pull kids out of practice/game if they’d missed school that day, even an excused absence like for a dentist appt (so I couldn’t make dentist appts during the school day). Her school was trying to put the student back in the “student athlete”
Agree that if there is a space problem, list where it is most appropriate or list in the same line, like "Soccer (20/hs team; 30/wk club)
I once worried about my kid’s ECs because there wasn’t enough. I have since learned that one varsity sport with a club team is plenty - probably way more time expended on it than the usual list of ECs for non athletes. A friend of mine asked at an Ivy, and was told that the point of ECs is that the school just didn’t want kids who do nothing but study all the time. Also, Adcoms understand the difference between the kid who only volunteered at the School blood drive (a one day obligation) and sports. A school team easily takes up at least 2-3 hours daily for practice (15 hours per week) and another 5-10 hours a week for game travel and games (total 20-25 hours a week).
That said, you probably can think hard of more activities that are sports-related. Perhaps your daughter donated used sports equipment to a less-advantaged school, helped coach a middle school team in her sport or maybe helped out with a snack bar at a sporting event. If you think about it, I am sure you can come up with more activities if you think you need to.
That’s what the parents are for! I don’t think she gets to claim my ECs.
Reminds me of other fund raisers, especially when kids were selling cookie dough or similar products. When we started and were naïve, we dutifully hit up friends/neighbors/relatives. We soon realized it was just a big circle where you buy my kids junk and I buy your’s, with these fund raising companies making the real money on these overpriced goods. So I just started cutting a check directly to the teams for what my kids’ sales would have netted. I know these fund raisers are supposed to teach the kids the value of work to fund their activities, but more than half the time, it’s the parents’ solicitation. Each year I suggested that the kids go out and rake leaves in the fall – shot down because it involved too much work on the part of the kids (and the coaches – easier just to make each kid sell $50-100 of cookie dough and candied kettle corn).
Thanks. I think she probably has enough activities (I think she has 6 listed), that are genuine activities. High school sport, club sport, community volunteering, lifeguarding job, etc. She can definitely add a seventh or eighth (such as strength and conditioning group), but doesn’t feel she should list that as a separate activity. So much of this is just using best judgment and hoping it’s enough!
I agree that she doesn’t need to list every single thing like Strength and conditioning. That’s just a ‘thing’ she does for her own improvement. You wouldn’t list that she goes to the dentist every week even though that IS an activity that some high schoolers have to do.
The AOs know what is a real EC and know that there are a lot of things that take up time to be in a sport (travel, washing the uniforms, making up school work)
Question about supplemental essays. I know the general rule of thumb is optional essays are not really optional for the schools you want to go to. I’m not sure precisely how many supplemental essays the NESCAC school has that my D is verbally committed to because they don’t send those prompts until the common app is submitted. She only knows of one for sure which is the “why this school” essay. She has already started that one because the coach had told the committed recruits that they had to do that one. The coach then sent an email yesterday to her recruit/commit group and reiterated they had to do the “why this school” essay, but said the other supplementals were “completely up to them”- we really weren’t even aware, until she sent the email, that there were other optional/supplemental essays. For those of you who have kids playing in the NESCACs or other high academic schools, as verbal commits, did they do every optional/supplemental essay? She did encourage the interviews, though she said they weren’t mandatory. D did already do an interview.
For the Why Us essay include specific things about the school that your D intends to do/be involved in that go beyond her sport. So, major, specific class(es) she would like to take, prof she would like to do research with, clubs she would like to be involved in. Steer clear from the general, such as commenting on the ‘beautiful campus’, or stating ‘I knew this was the place for me the minute I got out of the car’.
For the other optional essays (I know of one NESCAC that does have an essay prompt appear in the portal after applying but there could be others like that), I would encourage her to do them, unless they are ones like “is there anything you would like to share about your experiences during the pandemic” or “do you have any thing else you want to share with us”. I know at least one NESCAC has a prompt you can answer in a video recording…I don’t think she needs to do that since she did interview already.
Thanks! She did some more investigating, and she thinks that the coach was referring to any additional essay prompts on the common app such as the Covid statement. She thinks the only additional essay for her school is the “why us” one, which she is doing.
Lol. My rower had one EC outside her sport, but it was deep. IB diploma and rowing 5 days a week (and commute time and not including weekend racing) kept a very ambitious Type A kid completely occupied.
My soccer player, who also attended a highly ranked and selective LAC, had zero. None. It was soccer. Period. Traveling all over the place all the time for games. Neither of them really had time for anything super meaningful (still don’t know how the rower did it). I guess they both were involved in working with special needs kids in school, which was meaningful and something they both did for years. We added that.
If I were an AI, I’d be skeptical about a long list of ECs. Even 6 seems pretty damn long unless it’s very clear that the bulk of them are not very time consuming.