As a European student, I have noticed American applicans have far more extracurriculars than are available to me.
Varsity captain, debating, etc. etc. are things that aren’t available at my school. Also, there are little awards one can achieve here. There are only 3 national competitions, and my school only allows participation in one. Will it damage me to have very little extracurriculars? Are there European applicants or students who could post which extracurriculars they have? Possibly from the Netherlands/France/Belgium? Thanks.
Also, I currently don’t do any sports/activities (unless fitness counts as one). I have done several sports, but stopped them over 2 years ago. Would this look bad on my application, if I have no sports/activities to mention?
I’ve spent a reasonable amount of time on CC and I’m also in the same situation as you. Currently I don’t have any real EC (I do GCSE Maths as EC) and I’ll be doing MUN next year. Europe doesn’t have the EC culture of the US and there is also the time problem (I think in the US most students have more time for ECs than here). I don’t know to what extent it’ll hurt your (and mine too) chances but I think that for any top 20 including MIT it will hurt because they are definitely not lacking amazing candidates. What is seen well though is to seize the opportunities you get and to make the most out of them.
Again, I’m not much more knowledgeable than you on this question. I think that if you ** repost ** this in the ** International students ** section, you’ll get a lot more relevant answers.
There is one good thing about being an International Student: colleges love them because they are generally full pay, unlike many of their US peers.
I would also think the the schools know that there are not the same EC opportunities abroad and account of that, just like they don’t hold a lack of AP classes against kids who went to schools where APs were not offered.
EC’s do not have to be tied to your school, and for most European applicants, they will not be. However, there is generally an opportunity to pursue EC’s within your community, whether a local sports club, part-time employment, volunteering in the community, as examples. Many US colleges will want to see that there is more to your life than academics.
Thanks for all your answers.
Skieurope, i know they do not necessarily have to be bound to school, but even then the activities you mentioned would be little compared to US students. Thank you for the examples
That is actually totally irrelevant at MIT. MIT offers need-blind admissions for all applicants, including internationals, and offers full-need financial aid for all admitted students, again including internationals. It is one of six US schools to do this.
MIT evaluates each student in context. The question is always “what did this student do with the opportunities that were made available to them?” If you come from a school which offers a lot of school-based extracurricular activities, then if you do not participate in them, then the obvious question is “why did you make that choice?” If you did not have that choice to make, then that is fine.
One question we regularly see posted on this forum, in many years, are students from commonwealth countries asking “How many A-levels do I need to get into MIT?” And again, there is no answer. If you attend a school where nobody does more than 3 A-levels, then 3 is a perfectly fine number. There are a number of schools that cap the maximum number of A-levels that a student can do at 4. And there are a few that allow 5. If you are at a school where many kids take 5 A-levels, then 3 is no longer a perfectly fine number.
The same holds true for extracurricular activities. Do not worry.