Good information to know! We both applied to some private schools but I know URI and RIC(my state schools) want a well rounded applicant and place high value on ECs. It’s been drilled into us since 7th grade. So I suppose the answer IS, depends what school. Hopefully some of the ones you mentioned can help the OP.
As a Guidance Counselor for 30 years I agree with Dlnetvaroha. We see it very often, both public and private. Top grade students not getting top schools. It’s often EC. As the top schools get more and more competitive, ECs matter even more. Does this mean every college will deny you? No. But when every student applying to Top Schools has a 4.1, awards, AP credits etc? ECs become big business. Often a tie breaker. And yes, effects FA. As we all know many things are “unwritten”. No college will tell you to your face that you were disqualified for certain things. But those who deal with this know the scoop. Transparency is not their forte.
I do NOT discourage anyone from applying. You absolutely can still get into great colleges. Every year is different as every applicant pool is different. You cannot know your competition. Do the best you can, that’s all you can do. I’ve seen kids I never thought would get into a certain school get accepted and vice versa.
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When I was responding, I was responding about need based aid…which is financial based and not EC based.
There are certain merit awards which do consider ECs that relate to their organizations.
Ah, yes I understand now
Even with a school like Caltech, ECs are definitely taken into consideration. They probably get hundreds of cookie cutter 4.0, 1600 applicants with no personality whatsoever, and they just get flat-out rejected
I don’t know anybody like this, do you?
It’s true that many people who are drawn to engineering end up with similar ECs, similar course selection, etc.
That’s not because they are “cookie cutter” “with no personality”. That is because A. there are a list of extracurricular activities that every “college consultant”, GCs, and other people sharing advice all recommend - the math competitions, the hackathons, and robotics competitions. B, these ECs are indeed some of the best places for somebody with interests in engineering to engage in activities that they love.
Caltech accepts a tiny number of students a year - they have fewer undergraduates than most Liberal Arts Colleges. They are looking for something pretty specific in their students, and ECs help them decide whether these students match what they want. If you look at Caltech’s “What We Look For” page, you can understand why they need ECs to decide.
However, @DadOfJerseyGirl is absolutely correct about the achievements being more important. Caltech isn’t really looking for “unique” ECs, and “applying sideways” doesn’t really work. Top awards in math and science competitions are likely far more interesting for the AOs at Caltech than having a unique non-profit which is highly successful and influential.
MIT, CMU, etc, are different, and they are looking for other interesting things.
On the other and, if you look at Berkeley or UCLA, that supposed “cookie cutter 4.0, 1600 applicant” is most likely to be accepted, with minimal extracurricular activities.
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deleted – note to self, don’t post so much when suffering from insomnia
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What Caltech differs from other schools is that it carefully looks for and places greater emphasis on an applicant’s overall academic potential. Given the roles Caltech faculty play in the admission process, it isn’t surprising that it bears some similarity with how grad schools look for in a PhD candidate, except that it’s the overall potential, rather than field-specific potential, that matters.
There’re no boxes to check. Successes in these competitions could certainly help, but what lead to those successes are equally important. For example, an applicant who appears to put a great deal of spare time/energy participating in math competitions every year for many years but only achieve modest success by 12th grade isn’t as impressive (in terms of potentials) as another applicant who achieve the same success with much less directed effort (perhaps evidenced by other time-consuming activities s/he pursues). The pattern and the history is as important as the final result.
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One point about EC’s is that they are evaluated within the context of your background. Is the applicant from a wealthy family in a nice suburban school district? That student should be taking advantage of the opportunities that surround them. That’s different from a student who comes from an under resourced school who needs to work 20 hours a week to help support the family. Your College Bound Kid had a good podcast on this with more details: YCBK 301: 10 College Application Mistakes to Avoid-Part 1 of 2 - Your College-Bound Kid and the blog post they were referring to was here: 10 College Application Mistakes to Avoid | IvyWise
I have such mixed feeling about ECs - many of the most impressive ones seem unrealistic for so many students (especially those without access). And that goes for kids from UMC suburbs as well. Whatever happened to having a job (S24 works 10 hours a week in an unglamorous job - busing tables and cleaning at a restaurant) - many UMC kids (like my own) could really benefit from the responsibility and reality check from doing something besides an internship set up by mom and dad.
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MOST ECs are unremarkable. If you can’t do something super impressive-- and most teenagers cannot! – then I believe it’s important to think outside the box. Do things/present yourself in a way that few others can. It does not have to be about expensive parent-organized activites!!
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Vanderbilt, as of about five years ago, was very stats focused in terms of admissions. At our school, there was a pretty clear region in the scattergrams where acceptance rate approached 80% or better.
Take a look at recent scattergrams to see if that is still true.
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You’re really not saying anything different than I am - Caltech is looking for a certain set of skills and talents. The skills and talents are indeed primarily academic, but GPA + LoRs are not enough to identify these. The participation in competitions and the awards are simply indicators of the talents and skills that they are looking for, and yes, just participating in competitions isn’t enough. However, no kid gets top awards in AIME just by slogging away every year at the competitions.
Of course, working with a mathematics professor and solving complex problems will be just as impressive as doing the same thing as part of a competition.
It’s mostly terminology - “potential” is what I refer to as “talent”.
PS. Having faculty evaluate applications results in them selecting students who are similar to them, primarily as students, which is probably why so many Caltech students go on to do PhDs.
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I wasn’t trying to. My comments were intended to augment yours.
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