<p>I’ve heard a few people on CC mention that work experience can take the place of time-consuming extracurriculars if the work is done out of necessity to support your family. </p>
<li><p>Is this true?</p></li>
<li><p>How would one indicate this on an application?</p></li>
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<p>I’m not really in this situation, just curious as to how it would be indicated.</p>
<p>Thanks…</p>
<p>I think work experience looks good regardless of whether or not it's out of necessity, so even if you're not in an economically dire situation solid work can still help and be equivalent to an EC. Something like working at a restaurant would probably look better than working at Abercrombie, though; what usually looks good about work experience is that it gets these cloistered middle-class academically oriented kids outside of their bubbles and forces them to labor and interact with different kinds of people. </p>
<p>If you work to support your family I guess you'd mention that in the Additional Information section to explain a dearth of ECs. If admissions officers see like 40 hours of work per week on an app though, they'd probably realize that you're working that much for a good reason, namely family economics.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot!</p>