Will colleges look unfavorably at extracurriculars being dropped during senior year (to the point where they reject me)? Do they even check?
And please no, “You should’ve done what you liked.” The current application process breeds this sort of behavior, especially when the selection of extracurriculars is limited in your community.
I have yet to be accepted/rejected from the colleges in question. They’re all upper mid-tier to high tier non-Ivies (UC Berkeley, Northwestern, Georgia Tech, etc.)
It depends on the EC, but many ECs that are team activities count on their seniors to provide leadership, mentoring to younger EC participants, and skills that help the team. Are you letting down your coaches/teachers who have invested a lot of time in your development? I’d say it is best to power through senior year and stick with them. You have no one to blame but yourself (sorry, the “current application process breeds with sort of behavior” is a copy out) if you are involved in activities you don’t actually like. The good news is that you CAN quit them after this year and never participate again if you don’t want to.
I transferred schools in my Senior year so the coaches and teachers aren’t the ones who invested their time. I have coaches and teachers from my old school who I profusely thanked and got gifts for when I left. So I have no leadership roles on my application beyond that which I did my Junior year.
You can drop ECs in your senior year that you don’t enjoy and no colleges don’t check. What they check is when you claim to be president of x and another kid from you school applying to the same school claims to be president of the same club…Or you claim to be running the school based on your amazing # of leadership roles and it doesn’t sync up with what the guidance counselor said in their rec. And you don’t want to be in a position of actually lying on an application - where you said you were doing a club at the time you applied, and you weren’t actually doing it. However, AFTER you apply, well drop it or continue based on whether it gives you any pleasure.