Some say that highly selective colleges are looking for well rounded students, others say that they are looking for students that excel/focus in one area. Which is true? Does someone who applies undecided get disadvantaged? Should your EC’s be broad with many fields or keep it short with few activities? I know that “you should do what you want to do and not worry about what the college wants” but still. One must be better than another.
It seems that highly selective colleges are looking for students who excel/focus in one area as far as ECs, because those can really showcase your academic interests and strengthen your argument for why, for example, you would love to study computer science at MIT or government at Harvard. But as far as courses and test scores, they should all be rigorous with no glaring weaknesses, since these colleges have their pick of applicants who are strong across all 5 core subjects, SAT subject tests, AP exams, etc.
Competitive colleges are not interested in students who carefully craft their activities around what will look good to colleges-regardless of whether that crafting results in involvement in a broad number of ECs or a few.
@lostaccount I agree but I’m not sure how colleges can tell the difference between genuine interest and “carefully crafted”
@lostaccount I agree with insane dreamer, what if the student has 8 EC’s but are interested in all of them? I think it would be unfair to say that person has a laundry list.
The application includes essays and letters of recommendation for a reason. That’s where you differentiate between laundry list ECs and meaningful ones.
If a school is looking for impressive individuals to build a diverse class, which students fit that bill the most? The ones with an impressive skill or two or the ones who are unimpressive at a lot of things?
@iwannabe_Brown What do you mean by impressive? Also, recs might not be beneficial if the teacher doesn’t know about the students activities(i doubt most do).
@lostaccount I agree but I’m not sure how colleges can tell the difference between genuine interest and “carefully crafted”
I’m not sure they can until the student arrives on their campus. But the student has spent 4 years trying to mold him/her self into some sort of likeness of something they are not- if all their choices in high school were governed by the need to craft the perfect resume “for college”. And the student may be in for a big surprise-not getting in to their “dream school” and then feeling they spent the 4 years “working hard for nothing” when pursuing genuine interests and taking meaningful courses might have been far more fulfilling. Perhaps the fact that so many students are trying to game admissions is responsible for so many students feeling that they were mislead by messages that doing certain things would get them into " a good school" (read: Harvard).
If a student is genuinely interested in the topics covered by 8 AP classes and feels that taking those courses will enhance their knowledge base, and if the student has the competency and time to master the material in those 8 classes then by all means that student should take them. I did not get that flavor from the OP’s post though.
To the OP’s question…from everything I hear it is fine to be either well-rounded or to be passionate about one thing. To paraphrase what a college admission officer said…“We are looking to create a well rounded class. That does not mean that each individual has to be well-rounded. Our class will include some students with passions/talents in specific areas as well as some students who are well-rounded individuals.”
When I went to Duke, the admissions officer said, “We have never called someone a well-rounded student.” That was what he said and he was talking about how they don’t look for people who have a bunch of clubs, sports, and so on. Excelling in one or two fields tends to be favorable.
@IvyLeaguer225 Interesting. Do you think someone excelling in one field(sport), such as myself, who has other activities would be favorited? I still think they would like to see more involvement past your main EC.
@bksoccer7 Yes, you would defiantly be favored. Don’t worry about doing and not doing certain clubs because of college. I’d just say do things you like and don’t try to join every single club
Depends on the school and the activity.
That’s true, they might not be, but school based ECs are something that teachers can and do bring up. For colleges that allow letters beyond a couple teachers people often have letters written by people who are supervisors/advisors of their ECs.
Colleges like a well rounded class but not well rounded students.