A few days ago, Lafayette College announced that it will now only consider up to six activities rather than the 10 available through the Common App form. The school reports that this decision is “part of its commitment to making college more accessible and the process more inclusive for students.”
According to Lafayette President Nicole Hurd,
“We want to let students shine and not send them a message that holds them back or creates unneeded anxiety. The current application, which allows for up to 10 activities, can suggest to our students and families that quantity matters more than quality, that getting into college is about filling in blanks. Suggesting that students should pursue 10 activities while in high school and producing a great academic record does not make good sense to us. We want to make it clear to students that what matters to us are the activities and passions in which they are deeply invested.”
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How many activities should you be able to submit in the Common App?
I actually liked the activities list in the UC application, with space to list 20 activities, and a more generous character limit to include more details for each one.
Agreed, the UC activities and awards section is far superior to the Common App. Yes you can put include activities if you want but you also have to justify them more, so that if it really is just a resume builder you passively joined that will come across. You’re asked to explain how you personally contributed to the activity, or what the significance of the award is, how you earned it and how selective it is, etc.
I hate to limit kids in what they can put in their application if it was meaningful to them. But I do wish there was a way to more effectively convey to kids that quantity per se is usually completely irrelevant. And that, frankly, most AOs are only going to glance at the lower part of the list, and often give it no real consideration in the overall assessment, unless something really unusual or interesting stands out.
So I don’t know–how about like 6 slots to start, and then you can ask for 3 more in Supplement #1, then another 3 in Supplement #2, and so on. Maybe unlimited supplements if you really want them, maybe an ultimate cap, and the numbers are flexible. But the point would be to make clear to kids that typically the top few are going to be the ones that matter, and more than a few are not at all necessary.
More is not better. If a kid a
Has a few things they like to do but actually do it for more then 1 year, that is more meaningful for colleges then listing 12 ecs and somehow you have a leadership role in all of them.
I agree, but having more slots on the app doesn’t necessarily mean that the student feels pressure to fill all the slots.
My son felt pressure to choose meaningful and impactful activities to fill each of the 10 slots on Common App, but he didn’t feel the same way about the 20 slots on the UC app. With 20 slots it seemed obvious to him that they didn’t expect all to be filled, so he just filled in as many as he needed.
Our kids were trying to find 10 things and both were very active at their high schools… Lol. Colleges like consistency to some point. Sure try some things and have fun but do a few things for 2-4 years and get involved and make it meaningful and have an impact.
Exactly. All 3 of my kids had to decide which meaningful things to leave out of the list of 10 but the one who applied to the UCs didn’t use all 20. Providing more options becomes itself a test of the students judgment that the colleges can decide to consider or not. If someone has 20 slots uses them all, filling some with silly or trivial things, that is a fair reflection on them. If another person has 14 things that the AO all finds relevant, good for them.
MIT takes a more nuanced approach on their application (they don’t accept Common App).
They have four slots for activities, but they also offer six additional slots for summer activities, and three additional slots for work experiences.
FWIW, our older filled out some of the summer activities slots with the names of some of the books he read in high school that he felt were most meaningful to him.
In the end, it doesn’t really matter how many activities colleges let you list if you are applying sideways.
I also like the flexibility as the 20 spots don’t all need to be activities per se, so you can include things that feel meaningful to you even if they normally wouldn’t fit well in any section of the application; for example, in addition to more standard ECs, part job job, and a few awards, my daughter also listed classes she had taken through Coursera and a subject she had worked on with a tutor - i.e. study that doesn’t show up on a transcript (classes with no grades and not for credit) and that wouldn’t fit into the Common App EC list, and yet in some cases provided meaningful experiences to the student and demonstrate specific interests and how the student sought out opportunities to explore topics of interest just because they wanted to learn about them, rather than because they were part of their high school curriculum. She filled up 4 or 5 spots with such classes she had taken for fun that wouldn’t otherwise have shown up in the app but which had been important to her.