Do Extracurriculars Matter in the College Admissions Process?

Do Extracurriculars Matter in the College Admissions Process?

A lot of high school graduates want to stand out when it comes to applying for colleges. Because of this, a lot of them participate in numerous extracurricular activities, hoping to increase their chances of being accepted to the university of their dreams.

I remembered how during my senior year, I was so stressed out because the competition was so tough and I really wanted to stand out so that I could get into my dream school. I had the idea that if I was able to land a part time job, it would look really good on my college applications since it would show the dean of admissions how hardworking and great at time management I was.

The most available and common job for students at that time was working as a barista, I didn’t want to take it because that would mean that I would have the same job experience as the rest of my peers. Instead, I chose to work for a company, mostly doing digital marketing for them. At first I thought the job was easy-peasy, but boy was I wrong. I was tasked with generating leads for the company’s website. At the time, I did not even know how leads worked. Thankfully, upon doing some research, there are actually some lead generation tools that you could use, plug-ins that could make my job way easier. The one that worked best for me was LinkedProspect (accessible via their site: www.Linkedprospect.com ). According to their page, LinkedProspect was developed by a team of lead generation specialists, customer service experts, and programmers. Because of the power automated lead generation care of LinkedProspect , my boss couldn’t be more proud of me.

But, do your extracurricular activities really increase your chances of getting in? Do they really matter?

This is one of the existentialist questions that often keeps a high school student tossing and turning at night. Well, the short answer is yes. But you should also know why they matter and what kinds of extracurricular activities could actually increase your chances of admission to your selected university because not all extracurricular activities weigh the same.

According to various surveys that have been conducted, admissions officers

consider extracurriculars as one of the top 4 must haves for an aspiring college student, however, it does not outweigh your performance inside the classroom or how well you do on the entrance exams.

Where Do Extracurriculars Stand In Terms of Importance for Admissions?

As previously stated, the extracurriculars you join may indeed have an impact on your chances of getting in to the college of your dreams, however it is just a single variable in the list of factors that will have an effect on whether the admissions officer accepts you or not.

- Grades - Difficulty of course load - SAT or ACT scores - Extracurriculars - College admissions essay - Recommendation letter(s) - Interview There is sufficient evidences which tells us that a huge percentage of admission decisions is actually not based on the number of hours you volunteered at your local flower shop or how many weekends you spent building birdhouses for your local neighborhood. As much as we would like to believe that our grades don’t really define us, that is just not the case for most college admissions. According to a research done by The Atlantic, the students who do well in college are those who performed well and got good grades while they were in high school. This is also the primary reason why submitting your transcript is one of the requirements when applying for a college.

Amidst all this, and even though your extracurriculars only land in the middle of the list of important factors and cannot act as a substitute for good grades and test scores, numerous studies show that taking part in extracurricular activities has a lot of positive effects on the students. In fact, upon observing the students who engage in extracurricular activities, they seem to have better attendance, achieve higher scores in their SATs, and tend to have a higher GPA as compared to those who chose not to take part in any other activities outside of their academic program.

Taking part in various extracurricular activities could be an indicator of several key qualities that an admissions officer would deem important: -

Passion Sense of commitment Good time management Talent and skills Interests

What Can Be Counted as an Extracurricular?

Colleges and universities don’t really put a pin on their exact definition of what an extracurricular activity should be. In fact, an activity does not even have to be endorsed or offered by your own high school for it to count.

Volunteering, working a part-time job, creating your very own small enterprise, selling your works of art online — all of these could count just as much as joining the debate club, being the president of your batch government, spearheading a school event, etc. if you can just describe the ways that the experience was meaningful, useful, and imperative to your growth as an individual. Admissions officers tend to look at your extracurricular activities so that they know what characteristics you will be able to add into their ever growing and diverse student population.

Quality or Quantity?

According to admissions officers, the number of extracurricular activities you have does not really matter as much as the quality. There are numerous options out there but you have to choose the ones that can and will help build your character, expand your knowledge, and is meaningful. Make sure that your list of extracurriculars correspond to the real you, not some other person whom you are trying to be just so you could impress the admissions officer. Colleges are usually not looking for a specific number of activities, but it definitely should not be zero.

Conclusion Your grades and test scores are indeed important but what you choose to do during your spare time is also important. Engaging in extracurricular activities can be a really valuable experience that could help you in the future, whether in college or in your job.

References: https://admissions.usf.edu/blog/do-extracurriculars-matter-in-the-college-admissions-process https://blog.prepscholar.com/best-extracurricular-activities-for-college