Here’s the answer:

Easy. Grades. Hands down.

Why is that? Well, the answer is pretty simple, really.  Schools like to admit people who perform well at school. Certainly, it’s nice to be an all-conference left fielder or volunteer hundreds of hours at your favorite non-profit. And colleges will be happy if you want to bring those talents with you to their school. But not unless you have the GPA and academic rigor to do well in the classroom. Grades are more important than your extracurricular activities.

Many students, however, would prefer to believe that the grades on their transcript don’t matter much. After all, we have all read or heard second-hand stories that being involved in many activities can sway an admissions office decision.

But the point is this: grades are the measure of your work in school. They are the assessments of your academic performance. And they are recorded and presented to college admissions offices on your transcript. 

The Importance of Your High School Transcript

The number one most important element of your college application is your transcript. The transcript is the record of your academic performance. It gives information about the rigor of your courses (e.g., honors, college prep, remedial, Advanced Placement, etc.), as well as your performance (your grades in those classes). You have a GPA that is a mathematical representation of your performance through high school. And this GPA is used to compare your performance with other students at your school. They will recalculate your GPA to standardize across applicants, focusing on your real GPA.

College admissions officers read and re-read your transcript. They will focus on your primary academic subjects, including math, English, science, social studies, and world languages. They will pay much less attention to your grades in your “extracurricular pursuits done while in school,” including music, theater, business, art, debate, and sports conditioning.

These subjects are academically light-weight. Your grades in these subjects may say more about your dedication than they do about your talent. I mean, it’s nice to have good grades in these “extracurricular” subjects, because they demonstrate you are responsible and that you have a decent work ethic. 

School Is School (Not an Extended Holiday)

But again, a college is a “school,” not a Fun-Zone (okay, okay, college can be fun, but the real work of the college is done in the classroom). Colleges want to know whether you can analyze literature, perform a chemistry experiment, identify the causes of the Vietnam War, or solve difficult geometry problems. So they will focus on your grades in the core academic subjects. 

Admissions officers may also likely recalculate your grade point averages. They will probably strip the extra little points you may get for honors or AP or IB courses. They do this so that they can really compare your performance against others in the same class in the same school.

The fact you got a B in that AP US History course but that you got a “bump” in your GPA to make it “equal” an A does not wipe away the incontrovertible fact that you did not get an A in AP US History. College admissions officers are well aware of the shenanigans high schools engage in to reward students for taking hard courses.

So your high school transcript is more important than just about everything in the admissions process.  

But there are some other things that are also super-important–more so than your extracurricular achievements.

Standardized Test Scores

The other academic factor is your test score on the ACT or SAT. While these scores are not really a measure of your intelligence or your classroom abilities, they are measures of how well you understand English and basic mathematical computation. These fundamental academic skills are important if you are to succeed in college. The colleges that require these scores are giving you a chance to show off those skills.

Now much has been said about the diminishing importance of standardized tests in the admissions process. Many colleges and universities remain “test-optional” after first doing so in 2020. But, some elite . Here is the most updated list from the College Board, which includes MIT, Dartmouth, Harvard, Brown, Cornell, and others.

But even if colleges remain test-optional, you should still attempt the test. A strong test score is another academic feather in your cap that demonstrates your prowess in the classroom. It is an imperfect measure of your intellectual gifts, but it certainly gives college admissions officers some solid information about your basic mathematical and English communication skills–not to mention your ability to do well on standardized tests!

What’s more, a good test score might help you score some merit scholarship dollars at your preferred college (assuming that your preferred college awards merit-based scholarships…many of the most selective colleges do not). 

Teacher Recommendations

Other academic factors also enter the mix at most colleges. The first is your teacher recommendations. Not all colleges require them, but certainly, the more selective ones generally do. These recommendations do not focus on all your extracurricular achievements—but on your curricular ones.

Your teacher knows very well how you do in the classroom, whether your assignments show sophistication and your tests indicate mastery of the material. For more about getting great letters of recommendation for college, see this post.

Extracurricular Achievements

Once admission officers have considered these academic factors, they will turn to your extracurricular achievements. These activities can show dedication, perseverance, and distinctive talents, and often provide a platform for developing leadership abilities. So extracurricular accomplishments are definitely important. Every admissions office wants to fill their class with hard-driving, creative, and interesting people who are willing to make their college a better place.

But they won’t just skip over your poor academic performance and let you in because you can run fast and debate with the best of them. They may admire your creativity, but if you can’t demonstrate that you can hack the algebra and the five-paragraph essay, you won’t get in. The fact remains that grades are more important than your extracurricular activities.

Summary: Which is More Important — Grades or Extracurricular Activities?

If you haven’t figured it out before, there is a clear answer to this question: grades. Extracurricular activities can be important, not only for college admission but for giving you fun and interesting experiences throughout high school. And beyond.

But in the college admissions process, your grades are far and away more important. If you don’t have the grades, no amount of extracurricular achievement can make up for your inability to perform well in school.

So if you want to go to college, go study!

Need help with the college admissions process?

The expert admissions counselors at Great College Advice can help with high school course selection to balance rigor with GPA. We also provide assistance in developing your extracurricular activities along with researching colleges, essay support and overseeing the college application process.

Contact us today for your complimentary consultation.

Since 2007, the expert team of college admissions consultants at Great College Advice has provided comprehensive guidance to thousands of students from across the United States and over 45 countries across the world. Great College Advice has offices in Colorado, New Jersey, Chicago, North Carolina and Massachusetts.  

In addition to our one-on-one counseling, Great College Advice extends its support through one of the most active and resource-rich Facebook Groups for college-bound students and their families: College Admissions Experts. With nearly 100,000 members—students, parents, and experienced counselors—this vibrant forum offers peer support and expert advice like no other. 

The post Which Is More Important — Grades or Extracurricular Activities? first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

So given the subjective nature of the process, it isn’t entirely unreasonable to ask–over and over–what looks good on a college application?

So what looks good on a college application?

It’s not what you do, but how well you do it

Many parents believe there is some secret checklist that one follows to get into selective colleges:  

• community service,
• academic research, 
• leadership,
• sports,
• the arts,
• an internship.

But colleges care much less about the actual activity you pursue than the impact you make and the level of achievement you are able to reach. 

Athletics and college admissions

While it’s nice to play a sport–and American culture certainly emphasizes sports in our schools–the more selective colleges won’t care that much unless you are good enough to play for them and help them win the conference title.  Of course there are other benefits to sports other than the college application process, but if you want the sport to “look good” on the college application, you have to play well enough to get onto the college or university team.

Volunteering and college admissions

The situation is similar with community service.  Many people ask us how many hours of volunteer work look good on a college application. But it’s not about the number of hours. It’s about the impact.  For example, a student who spends 4 hours every Saturday for four years shelving books at the local library performs an important service to the community.  However, the impact is minimal:  if that student didn’t shelve the books, someone else would–eventually.  If, on the other hand, the student worked only a few hours a week over the summer to develop a new reading program for kindergartners and helped the library to write a successful grant proposal to fund it, the impact on the community would be much greater.  And imagine the two different recommendations the head librarian might write for these two students:  one was loyal and dependable and responsible, while the other was creative, innovative, and was able to envision a project and move it toward realization. It’s not the time you put in but the results you achieve.

Internships and college admissions

Similarly, internships are not about the time one spends or the prestige of the company.  It’s about what you do during your time on the job. It can be very useful for a young person to do a job shadow for a couple of weeks to learn about life as an engineer or a marketing director or sales manager. But that is a very passive sort of internship:  the student follows the principal around, attends meetings, and gets a feel for the world of work.  But what is that young person accomplishing? In some instances (though relatively rare), a high school intern is given a specific project to complete while on the job, and may also get some good supervision and access to various tools and systems that the young person can utilize to add value to the company. What colleges are looking for on the college application is your contribution, your agency, your impact on the organization. Most internships, to be frank, are of little value on the college application because most companies don’t have the wherewithal to conceptualize a meaningful experience for a high school intern–especially if the intern is going to be there only for a couple of weeks.  

Jobs on the college application

Having a job while in high school can look great on the college application. But here again, not every job is of equal impact. The student who slings ice cream a few evenings a week makes some good money and learns the value of punctuality, responsibility, loyalty, and adhering to the rules and regulations of the ice cream shop. However, the student who works very hard, goes above and beyond to build the confidence of the business owner may be promoted.

We once worked with a young woman who worked at In-N-Out Burger 20 hours a week all the way through high school. By the time she was a junior, she had been promoted to assistant manager and regularly opened or closed the store, handled all the money and receipts, and was trusted by the owner of the franchise to manage entire shifts on her own. Unsurprisingly, this young woman got a full tuition scholarship–in large part because of the outstanding letter of recommendation the franchise owner wrote on her behalf.  She clearly had a huge impact on this person’s business, and he was glad to tell the world what a responsible, considerate, diligent, and dependable human this young woman had become. So if you do get a job, and you want it to look good on a college application, look for ways to contribute above and beyond the expectations.

A case study of what looks good on a college application

Not too long ago we were working with a young man whose father insisted that he get a job. The father really loved the world of cycling, and he helped his son get an after school job at the local bicycle shop.  The young man was not very enthusiastic, but he was tasked with assembling bikes. By his own admission, he wasn’t very good at it, nor did he like it much.  But he showed up, day after day, and his coworkers liked him and engaged him in conversation. During these conversations in the shop, the owner learned that the young man was a computer whiz and enjoyed playing around with all sorts of programming software and had taken a computer science course in high school.  The owner then took him aside and showed him the inventory software they were using, and explained that nobody else in the shop could figure out how to work certain aspects of the software, and the inventory and sales data and reports weren’t matching up correctly. 

So the young man offered to help. And by the time he was done, he had completely reworked the software for the bike shop and created systems that the owner and other workers could use in a way that improved accuracy and efficiency–and profitability! And, incidentally, he never assembled another bicycle.  

Simply by showing up regularly, showing responsibility and a willingness to help, this young man made a tangible and useful contribution to the business he worked for.  When he put this job on the application, he could say much more about his work at the bike shop than reporting the number of hours worked and bicycles assembled. And his boss?  Just think of that glowing recommendation that was submitted along with the college application. 

Start ups can look good on a college application

The web is full of instances in which high school students started up new ventures, whether for profit or not-for-profit. These can definitely look good on a college application. Usually.

We worked with a young man who started up his own medical equipment donation organization–collecting supplies in the US and delivering them to clinics in Tanzania. Another young woman solicited donations to create back-to-school backpacks for elementary school students in low income neighborhoods. And another young man started up his own lawn care business that employed two other kids and made tens of thousands of dollars in a summer.  Yet another young man was written up in the New York Times because he refused to hear the word “no” when officials at this school said he could not create a film festival (he did it anyway). 

These are enterprises that the student conceived, planned, and executed themselves. Their motivations were sometimes different.  The young woman did her activity expressly to look good on her college application.  The young man with the lawn business need to pay for his car insurance, gas, and new tires.  What mattered, however, is that the students were firmly in charge of the programs they began, and had to resolve problems, react to setbacks, and interact with all manner of other people–almost exclusively adults–to achieve their aims. 

Less impressive start ups

Some start ups are less impressive, especially when it becomes apparent that parents are heavily involved in the success of the business, or provided the necessary seed capital to get it going (our lawn mowing student had to take out a loan from his dad to buy a mower), or otherwise provided too much support to make the venture go. Sometimes it’s hard to discern, from the outside, whether the venture is truly the brainchild of the child or the parent. But admissions officers have clues, most of which have to do with family income, social class, and privilege.  Kids whose ventures lie well outside the experience of the parents are most likely to be seen as creations of their own efforts–and not a result of parental guidance (or interference!). 

College admissions folks have become just a bit wary of the high number of start-up ventures that kids pursue.  It’s so easy in the US to set up a company or a non-profit company. The barriers to establishing a venture are pretty low. Here, as with any other activity, what’s important is not the establishment of the start up but the other metrics of success that the student is able to show: number of shipping containers delivered, number of kids who received backpacks, or the number of lawns mown and dollars earned.  Some ventures are able to show this sort of success, while others look good on paper, but don’t have the results to back up the claims.  

Intellectual curiosity is what looks good on a college application

These days, many kids are pursuing academic research as part of their college applications. They want to show that they have true intellectual interests and the skills and abilities to craft their own research. There are even programs out there for which families can pay to get the personalized guidance in developing and executing an academic research project. Other students make contact with academic researchers at local universities (or sometimes at far away universities) and develop research project with professors.  

Here again, however, not all academic research is treated equally in the college admissions process.  What’s important here–as in everything–is the impact, the substances, the quality of the research–and not the amount of time put in. It’s also not about the “prestige” of the university, the professor, or the department for which one works. In some cases, what is reported as “research” is nothing more than the student working in a lab cleaning test tubes or preparing samples.  It is not substantive work. 

In other cases, however, students are given quite a bit of responsibility within a structured laboratory environment, and they can actually contribute to the success of the research project. 

Sometimes the student is able to publish the results of the academic work they did, either as a co-author on a published research paper, or as a student author in publications like The Concord Review. 

Research is not just for science, either.  We’ve worked with students who have performed substantive historical research.  In one case it was with a professor, and in other cases it was with the guidance of a graduate student. One ended up being recognized in the publication the professor later published, while the other submitted his lengthy research paper for publication on his own. 

Reading looks good on a college application

Read. A lot. We can’t emphasize this enough. Reading not only will help your test scores improve, but it will both be a demonstration of your intellectual curiosity.  We are often dismayed when we ask high school students what they are reading.  Very seldom are they reading outside the school curriculum.

It is particularly disheartening when a student who swear she wants to do academic research is not reading in their professed field of interest. We have met kids who swear they are interested in neuroscience who have not ever read an article or book on the subject.  Or kids who want me to help them find a research project in biomedical engineering who cannot share anything they have read about it. 

Reading shows intellectual curiosity

But when a student tells us they are intellectually interested in something like military aircraft, and can point to the bookshelf full of books about Japanese kamikazes, the Red Baron, the history of commercial aircraft, air battles over Europe, and the use of rockets in warfare, we are impressed. And so were college leaders.  After this young man was interviewed by the Vice President of Enrollment for a college to which he was applying, the Vice President called to say how impressed he was. The young man’s enthusiasm and knowledge for his little hobby was contagious.  Needless to say, that college accepted him with a huge scholarship. 

The fact is that colleges want to accept learners, and learners are not just people who get good grades in school.  They are not just people who sign up for summer programs or do “academic research” with the guidance of a professor or graduate student. 

Learners are people who read, who teach themselves things.  They are people who have curiosities about the world, and then set out to satisfy that curiosity–whatever it is. Yes, watching YouTube videos or listening to podcasts can be informative.

But exploring the world’s libraries is really where we can find the repository of human intellectual inquiry. If you can’t find your library card or haven’t used it since you were reading Hop on Pop, now is the time. 

Do summer programs  look good on a college application?

Sometimes. 

The thing about the vast majority of summer programs is that they are relatively passive.  Someone else sets the syllabus. Someone else defines the parameters of inquiry. Someone else scaffolds the learning in ways that are digestible for younger learners (who have the attention span of a YouTube video rather than a 300-page book). And if there is a performance or assessment at the end of the experience, someone else has decided what that shall be, too. 

Summer programs can be a great way to advance your knowledge of a subject or get a taste of life or introduce you to an entirely new domain of knowledge. 

But, to return to the points above–isn’t that what the library is for?

The other thing about summer programs is that they tend to be expensive. In this way, they are beyond the reach of many, many students and their families.  And in some cases, the summer programs are great moneymakers for the colleges that offer them.  The Summer at Brown program is full of interesting intellectual offerings.  But thing of the profits Brown is spinning every summer.  The overwhelming majority of participants in the Summer at Brown program will have absolutely no chance of getting into Brown, while the kid who spend his summer reading histories of Civil War battles from the confines of his back yard may have a better chance of acceptance. 

Intellectual curiosity on the college application

What’s my point?  Intellectual curiosity comes from within. You can purchase ready-made programs to learn, and it can be helpful to learn in this way (after all, this is what college is all about–enter a classroom, learn from an expert, and perform an assessment to show you have enhanced your knowledge).  But the most selective colleges in the land are seeking young people whose intellectual curiosity is self-driven, not externally driven.  The self-motivated intellect is more desired–because those students are most likely to take best advantage of the resources at a place like Brown–rather than the kid whose parents paid a pretty penny for them to spend two-weeks on the Brown campus safely inside a college classroom learning whatever some graduate student cooked up on the syllabus. 

All this said, there are some summer programs that are very valuable and difficult to get into.  Examples include the Iowa Young Writers Studio, the Telluride Association Summer Seminar (TASS), and MIT’s MITES program and Research Science Institute (RSI).  And these programs may not even cost anything at all–but are offered on a competitive basis to the best of the best. 

Need help with that college application (and what looks good on it)?

The team at Great College Advice can help guide you in making choices about how to spend your time and how to ignite those inner curiosities.  If you want chat with a counselor to learn more about how we help young people craft interesting lives–and good college applications–give us a call or contact us via our website.  We look forward to the conversation. 

Since 2007, the expert team of college admissions consultants at Great College Advice has provided comprehensive guidance to thousands of students from across the United States and over 45 countries across the world. Great College Advice has offices in Colorado, New Jersey, Chicago, North Carolina and Massachusetts.

In addition to our one-on-one counseling, Great College Advice extends its support through one of the most active and resource-rich Facebook Groups for college-bound students and their families: College Admissions Experts. With nearly 100,000 members—students, parents, and experienced counselors—this vibrant forum offers peer support and expert advice like no other.

The post What Looks Good on a College Application? first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

All day every day, I answer this sort of question: what are the “best” extracurricular activities for college? It’s an important issue. A student’s involvement outside of school is critical in many ways–not just as a strategy for getting into college.

These activities are expressions of our personality, our talents, and of our priorities in life. Sure, school is important, but so are a great many other things in life.

As adults, some of us define ourselves by our professions. However, many more of us may define ourselves by our other involvements in our communities. All of us have interests and talents that extend beyond our careers. And sometimes these involvements take considerable amounts of our time. And energy.

These investments in time and energy can bring us a lot of joy and satisfaction. They can also make significant contributions to the communities in which we live.

But are extracurricular activities for college only? Are only high school students engaged in such activities?

Hardly. Everyone can do them!

Parents: What Are Your Extracurricular Activities?

I get calls from parents complaining that their kids do not engage enough in extracurricular activities. They know that these extracurricular activities for college applications are important. But sometimes I wonder what parents are doing to model the sorts of behaviors they want their kids to adopt. Are the parents, for example, highly engaged in activities that bring them joy and contribute to their communities? Or are they binge-watching Netflix every night or sitting on the couch staring at their phone?

My own parents modeled how to get involved. My dad played his trombone in an amateur orchestra and had rehearsals every week (at 87, he is still playing in a band!). He also climbed mountains, organized our family camping trips, and once worked with some local churches to bring the Duke Ellington orchestra to Denver to play his Concert of Sacred Music. My mom volunteered countless hours as a docent and educator at the Denver Art Museum.

While they were focused on raising three kids, they also found time to do things for themselves and for others. Their involvement was demonstrated to my brother and sister and me. Both the importance and the joys of engaging outside the family unit and outside their professions. We, then, found it completely natural and to do the same.

Teachers and School Counselors: What Are Their Extracurricular Activities?

Students, you might very well wonder what the adults at your school do in their free time (or maybe you don’t). But educators are people, too (surprise!). I know teachers who play instruments, who volunteer their time to construct sets for community theater productions, and who devote tons of time to their professional associations. Engage in local politics, and play professional lacrosse (it turns out that professional lacrosse doesn’t pay very well, so this guy teaches as a way to help him do what he loves even more than teaching).

Ask your teachers and counselors about their lives outside of school. Share what you are doing, but ask them. Do they knit? Do they volunteer at the local animal shelter? Does they have a huge vegetable garden filled with dozens of varieties of tomatoes? Does they go birding with the local Audubon Society? Are they in a summer volleyball league?

The point is that extracurricular activities should be a pleasure, not a burden. Adults do not do these things solely so that they can achieve some sort of objective. They do not do it in order to achieve some sort of reward (though sometimes that happens when someone makes a significant contribution). Rather, these involvements are expressions of their priorities, their interests, and their personalities. If you really want to get to know your teacher and school counselors, ask them what they do for fun!

College Admissions Officers: What Are Their Extracurricular Activities?

Can you imagine? The very people who will judge your applications to college are themselves likely involved in some sort of extracurricular activity. There are extracurricular activities for college applications, to be sure, and college admissions offices are going to be looking for them. But they have their hobbies and pastimes, too. You may or may not want to ask these folks what they do, but you can bet that they have interests outside of their job.

I mean, do you really think that the sole reason these people exist is to torture you? Many college admissions officers love their jobs. But most of them love the other things they do in life even more. I know college admissions officers who are athletes and musicians. I know one who raises dogs and trains them to be companion animals for the blind and deaf. Another is deeply involved in party politics as an organizer.

So You Want to Go to the Ivy League. What Extracurriculars Activities for College are Required?

The short answer is this:  anything you love and enjoy. There is nothing “required”. There is no fixed list of activities that will get you into the Ivy League or similar highly selective colleges and universities. However, I can share with you some of the activities that my friends who are Ivy League graduates are now engaged in–many years after they graduated not only from high school but far beyond. One guy I know is an accomplished retired attorney–now in his 80s–who has written a couple of spy novels and is also a fantastic jazz pianist.

My former college roommate takes awesome photographs of funny things he sees in New York City, where he lives. He also took up running a decade or more out of college and has run dozens of marathons. Another loves participating in historical reenactments of famous Revolutionary War battles. He is a ski instructor who trains 10-year-olds to become racers. Another has dedicated a ton of time to the Special Olympics in her community.

If you want to go to the Ivy League, you have to find a way to get engaged–and stick with it. Find something that interests you and run with it…as far as you can. However, don’t think that you’ll necessarily do this thing for the rest of your life. While my dad has played the trombone since he was about 12 years old. He has had other interests that have come and gone (he and my mom used to be wonderful square dancers, but that ended entirely when my mom developed Alzheimer’s, and now my dad focuses other interests like birding and opera).

I used to play the trombone in high school (and landed a slot in the All-State orchestra). But I dropped it in college in favor of a cappella music and acting). One of my former Ivy League students was an outstanding percussionist, but now he spends way more time backpacking in the wilderness than he does sitting in a rehearsal hall.

What matters is not what you do–but how much and how well you do it.

Educational Consultants: What Are Their Extracurricular Activities?

One thing I am most proud of here at Great College Advice is that I have an interesting, engaged, and curious group of colleagues. Each one of us has an abiding interest in providing the greatest college advice possible to our student and their families. But that is not all that interests us. We do stuff. We are involved. So let’s have a look: what does the team at Great College Advice do when they are not dispensing that great college advice?

The Quilter

Karen majored in East Asian Studies at Stanford and then got her Master’s in International Relations. She has worked in education for most of her career in a wide variety of roles. However, most people don’t know that she is an accomplished quilter. Not only does she painstakingly design and stitch her own creations, but she is a master at restoring old and damaged heirloom quilts.

She has made special quilts for family members, and sometimes she receives commissions from folks who appreciate her artistry and want one of her handmade masterpieces. One of her quilts (shown here) has more than 4500 individual pieces sewn together. Would it surprise you to learn that Karen is the master of details on our team?

The Political Activist

Andrea majored in Russian Studies in college, so all that is happening in Ukraine today is of keen interest to her: we went to school during the existence of the Soviet Union, and “mutually assured destruction” (or MAD) was the common understanding of what nuclear war might mean. More recently, Andrea’s time and attention have turned to local and state politics.

She has put her communications and organizational skills to work to lobby for issues and candidates she thinks will be best suited to contribute to our democracy. She has taken to heart that our democracy depends on our active participation. One of our core national beliefs is that we can always make our country better, and Andrea finds ways to do that every day.

The Skier

Pam graduated from Dartmouth and then moved to Colorado to be a ski bum (she was gainfully employed, but she had an interest that took precedence over her passion for powder). She worked in the mountains for a few years before eventually becoming a teacher. She and her husband met on the slopes!

Now she and her family ski as often as they can–though she admits that she skied less while her kids were in high school–because she spent time ensuring they could pursue their own interests, too. As her youngest heads off to college soon, this may mean that Pam and her husband will be headed up the road every winter weekend to chase the snow!

The King of Side Hustles

James, our Executive Assistant, works several jobs. One of his abiding interests is stand-up comedy, so he often works weekends at the local comedy club so he can catch the country’s best comedians as they come through Denver. James is also interested in health, and he has developed a line of matcha-based powdered drink mixes, a business he hopes will become a lucrative side-line. He also reads like a fiend, and in our weekly meetings, he usually makes another recommendation that the rest of the team adds to their own reading lists. Having grown up in Illinois and attended college, James has not yet learned to ski. But Pam may get him on the slopes yet!

The Chorister

Since graduating from college, I have sung in a classical choir in Washington, DC, started an a cappella group at my graduate school, performed in plays and musicals in Hong Kong (where I eventually chaired the board of the American Community Theatre), sang in an award-winning barbershop chorus, and now sing with a community chorus that performs four times a year. I also perform in an annual variety show (this year I make an appearance as the coronavirus). I also ski about 20 days a year and hike the Colorado Rockies as often as I can in the summer. Moreover, I volunteer my time as a member of the board of Full Circle of Leadville.

Extracurricular Activities for Grown Ups

The point of all this is to demonstrate that one’s involvements and interests enrich our lives. They serve as a focal point. We enjoy doing them.

Not only do these engagements make our lives full, but they bring us into contact with others who share those interests. This is often the way we make friends or even meet our spouses!

Extracurriculars for college are important for that once-in-a-lifetime transition from high school to college. However, they are important to us well beyond that brief moment in our human existence.

We should all be involved in our world in whatever ways suit us best. So get out there and do fun stuff!

The post Best Extracurricular Activities for College – Grown Up Examples first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

Stuck. Bored. Stir-crazy. Those are some of the sentiments we are hearing from our students. Without the ability to go out into the world, attend school, get together with friends, or pursue their usual activities, students are unsure of what to do with themselves. Plus, those who have college on their minds worry about how this period in their lives will be viewed in the application process. They wonder, how can I continue to show colleges that I’m involved and engaged when I can’t go out and do my thing? How can I manage my extracurricular activities and Covid-19?

We urge students to re-orient their point of view. Instead of looking at the current situation as a period of confinement, students should instead view it as one of freedom and opportunity. As we’ve said in several of our recent posts, colleges understand the constraints and challenges that students currently face. In other words, they have no expectation that students will be active in their usual pursuits. Students have a pass to take each day as it comes.

Making Covid-19 a Time of Opportunity

How does this cure the stuck, bored, and stir-crazy? While your past extracurricular activities and Covid-19 may be a bad mix, that doesn’t mean you have to laze around and complain. You have a lot of new possibilities all around you. Because students have more time on their hands and they don’t have to stress about what colleges want, now is the perfect opportunity for them to:

• Try something new
• Go deeper into interests that they don’t otherwise have the time to pursue
• Help their local community
• Be creative

Ideas for New Extracurricular Activities

Here are some starter ideas that are fun, educational, and will even be impressive to colleges:

• Take an online class. We know you are possibly online already for high school, but that’s not what this is! There are literally thousands of courses on every possible subject offered for free by organizations such as Coursera and edX. From poetry to politics to studying the science of happiness, you are sure to find something interesting.

• Join a political or get-out-the-vote campaign. It’s a big election year, and there’s lots you can do from home to support your favorite candidate – from social media support to letter and postcard writing. No experience is required. Just contact the office of the candidates, or contact your county-level political party headquarters. Getting involved will help you learn more about the issues in the world around you.

• Do some online business. Interested in studying business in college? What better way to learn some basic business principles than trying it yourself? Clean out the family closets and do some selling on eBay. Take your creations, whatever they may be, and do some promotion on Etsy. Or, volunteer to help with social media and marketing for a local business that may be struggling during these times.

• Start a blog. No matter what compels you, a blog is a great way to put your thoughts out into the public sphere, improve your writing capabilities, and learn some new internet functionality.

• Learn a new language. Online platforms such as Language Bird and Duolingo will help you to become competent in a new foreign language. You can also brush up on the news in other by listening to Slow News in French or in other languages. [And if you want to learn more about foreign language requirements and college admission, check out this post].

More Ways to Combine Extracurricular Activities with Covid-19

• Put your writing hat on. Craft some short stories or a screenplay. Enter creative writing competitions. Let your voice be heard and send in some op-eds to your local newspaper about issues that you care about.

• Help senior citizens in your area. Offer to do meal delivery, yard work and other outside activities to assist your elderly neighbors (from a distance). You could use sites such as NextDoor to get the word out that you’re available.

• Sew masks for healthcare workers. Our healthcare workers are in great need of masks to continue their fight against Covid-19. Don’t know how to sew? Now is a great time to learn! There are tons of charities looking for volunteers to cut and sew.

• Pick up some new life skills. Learn to cook. Paint your bedroom. Do your own laundry! These are all things that will be important as you go through college and life. (We’re not kidding).

• Gain some computer skills. Many online options exist that educate students on coding, building websites, and other aspects of computing. Here’s a list of over 20 opportunities: Computer Skills.

• Apply your computer skills. If you already have some coding abilities, there are organizations online that use your help. Get involved with home-based coding for nonprofits that need help through organizations such as Code for Social Good, Benetech, or DonateCode.

• Plant a garden. Get out into nature and start a garden, either for your family or your community. Flowers, fruits, vegetables, herbs. You can learn a lot by planting and growing a variety of crops. If you don’t know where to start, connect with your state agricultural extension office, which is usually part of your state university system. Best of all, you can enjoy the harvest or share it with your community.

So What Will You Do with This Opportunity? 

The bottom line is that only so much Netflix binge-watching is healthy, and there is no reason to feel stuck, bored, or stir-crazy, because there is truly so much that you can do. Look around you, brainstorm with your parents, take time to reflect, and you will discover literally thousands of interesting and productive ways you can spend your time. Seize this opportunity!

The post Extracurricular Activities and Covid-19: Get Creative! first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

Get a job

A summer job is a great way to show that you are a reliable person who follows through with commitments. It could be something related to your future field of study, but it doesn’t have to be—the nature of the job isn’t as important as the fact that you showed up and did all aspects of whatever it was you were hired to do. Be as involved as you can be; doing as much helpful, useful work as you can makes you a good employee, which means that you might be able to ask your manager or employer for a letter of reference later on.

Do meaningful volunteer work

In order for volunteer work to be meaningful, it has to be something that has an actual impact. Going to the food pantry for an hour here and there is a nice gesture, and doing a two-week volunteer program abroad is a neat experience, but those aren’t meaningful in the long run. Research local groups in your area that have volunteering opportunities, then reach out and explain that you want to volunteer on a consistent basis for your summer break. If it’s something that you could continue once school starts again, mention that too. Local groups will often have plenty of work to do, so this is a great opportunity to make a lasting, meaningful impact on your community.

Learn a new skill

Summer is a great time to do some self-driven learning! Want to learn a new language? Try Duolingo or Language Bird. Thinking about leaning to code? Udemy and Lynda have courses for that. Not sure what you’re interested in learning? Check out your local library or community college and see what kinds of programs they’re offering over the summer. You never know what might strike your fancy!

Read

This doesn’t just mean that you should do your summer reading requirement (although you should)! Reading is a great way to expand your knowledge, your understanding of different topics, and your vocabulary. Fiction and nonfiction alike are great ways to broaden your horizons; there are a lot of lists out there about important books to read, classic literature, and more, but don’t feel limited to the books on those lists. You’ll get something out of whatever book you choose. Your local librarian would be glad to help you pick something if you’re unsure!

The post No summer plans? No problem! first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

While it’s true that college campuses seem to be putting more emphasis on community service these days. It’s not crucial that each and every applicant amass hours and hours of volunteer hours.

In fact, a report called “Turning the Tide” from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education advocated a more genuine and sustained form of community service as an essential component for admission. This report was endorsed by deans of admissions from many of the country’s most selective colleges and universities.

However, in our view, it is not absolutely necessary that every student complete hundreds of hours of community service. As with so much else in the college admissions world, your community service contributions depend on all the other decisions you make as you prepare for admissions to the colleges of your choice.

Admissions for the most selective universities are ill-advised you to spread yourself too thinly. Perhaps you are a star athlete or a championship debater or first chair trumpet in a regional youth orchestra. If so, you are a very busy person trying to maintain your craft. You are practicing often, participating in competitions or concerts. As well as occupied with becoming truly great by strengthening your talents. It’s likely you don’t have much time for community service.

Maybe you do some volunteering around the edges. Or, you volunteer a few hours per year to maintain your membership in the National Honor Society. Or, you belong to a service club at your school in which you serve your school on occasion. But your focus is elsewhere.

University admissions personnel will admire your focus and your achievements. They will not expect you to be an acolyte of Mother Theresa and a star athlete, championship debater, or virtuoso trumpeter.

The Rules of Community Service

On the other hand, if you really enjoy community service, and you find joy in serving your community in one way or another. We heartily recommend that you continue to pursue those commitments. But here are a couple of rules about community service and the admissions process.

1. Don’t count hours: measure your impact. Your goal is not to spend more time making a difference. Instead, you want to make a measurable difference that others can see.
2. Focus your efforts on a single organization—or a single cause. Volunteering for short periods at a large number of organizations will dilute your efforts and reduce your impact.
3. Try not to focus on service that is far from home. You need not travel to Madagascar or Malaysia in order to find needy people or worthwhile causes. You will likely have more opportunities to have a measurable impact and create a sustained commitment if you stick close to home.
4. Get to know people who share your commitment. Connect with the leaders of the organization with which you volunteer.
5. Don’t forget the learning component of service learning. As you spend your valuable time helping others, spend time reading about the issues you are addressing. If you’re volunteering at a homeless shelter, read about the causes and proposed solutions for homelessness. Or, if you tutor in a school, learn about how poverty has a measurable impact on kids’ ability to get an education. And, if you volunteer at a library, learn about the trends in libraries today, and compare with the historical role of libraries in our community. In other words, remember that every service opportunity is related to serious social, economic, and political issues—and take the time to educate yourself.

How We Can Help

If you’re not sure whether you should pursue community service. Or, if you are looking for ways to increase your impact. You might consider setting up a consultation with one of our counselors. We advise our students—especially those aiming for the most selective colleges and universities—about how to develop priorities and manage their time so as to make themselves as attractive as possible to admissions officers. We can help you build a customized plan that will maximize your fun. As well as enhance your chances, and—most important—help you make your mark in your community.

Or you may want to consider our video courses on the admissions process. They are reasonably priced and a great way to educate yourself on how to get the most from your high school experience. Identify the best schools for you, and create winning applications.  

The post Community Service and Getting into College first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

In my last two blog posts, I’ve explained that your college application tells a story about you. And have discussed two of the most important parts of that story: your transcript and test scores. (See: “The Story of Your College Application: Transcripts” and “The Story of Your College Application: Test Scores“.) Here, I will focus on extracurricular activities, which constitute another part of your story.

Throughout this post, I will use the term “activities” to include everything students do outside of the classroom, including clubs, sports, community service, religious activities, and work experience. Many students have asked me if it will “look better on a college application” if they do one activity versus another. The truth is that it doesn’t really matter what you do, as long as you’re doing something and demonstrating an ongoing, in-depth commitment to it.

When deciding which activities to pursue, the most important question to ask yourself is, “What do I enjoy doing?” After all, if you’re going to devote a significant amount of time to something, you might as well have fun in the process. If possible, you should take on a leadership role in an activity. As this suggests that you are responsible and have good communication and organizational skills. Additionally, being a leader indicates that you are capable of guiding and managing your peers.  Colleges are interested in this because they want to admit students who will become leaders on their campuses.

Another factor to keep in mind is that you don’t have to do everything. Colleges are not impressed by students who have a mile-long list of activities. But who are only involved on a “surface level”. Especially if those students didn’t even get involved until their junior or senior year. Rather, colleges prefer applicants who have fully participated in two to three activities for an extended period of time. Furthermore, colleges like to see that students have achieved something in their chosen activities. Be it winning a district or state championship, receiving an honor or award, or holding a leadership position.

Some students choose not to get involved in extracurricular activities for a variety of reasons. One of the most common is that they want to focus on school and are afraid that participating in activities will negatively impact their grades. Unfortunately, this generally is not the type of student colleges are looking for. Of course, colleges want students who are committed to academics. But they also want students who will get involved on campus, as that is what makes colleges thrive. Not only that, but participating in activities and earning good grades shows that you can manage your time, and that is key to succeeding in college.

Another reason students might not participate in school or community activities is because they have to work or have family obligations. Such as taking care of younger siblings. Believe it or not, those are activities, too! Again, colleges like to see that you’ve made a long-term commitment to something and that you are responsible. And what better demonstrates that than maintaining a job or helping your family?

In addition to being interested in the extracurricular activities you do during the school year. Colleges also want to know how you’ve spent your summers. Unless you’re going to summer school, you don’t have to go to school at all during the summer. So what you do with that time speaks volumes about who you are. When deciding what to do during the summer, use the aforementioned guidelines. Summer should be more than just sleeping in, watching TV, and hanging out with your friends.

As with your transcript, you have control over the kind of story your activities tell. And you should give some thought to what you want your story to say. If you find yourself coming home after school everyday and doing nothing more than your homework. Ask yourself is there’s a better way you could be spending your time. Not only might you find something impressive to put on your college applications. You also might discover something you really enjoy.

The post The Story of Your College Application: Extracurricular Activities first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

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