Importance of Extracurriculars for Your College Application
By Path Mentor A.L., alumnus of Stanford University, majored in Biomedical Computation (Originally Posted on January 30, 2020)
Applying to college can be very stressful, especially given how competitive it currently is to get into a top institution. It’s important to find ways to distinguish yourself and stand out from other candidates. For the application process, colleges in the United States use a holistic process to evaluate you, which means they don’t just look at one thing to determine how suitable you are, but the whole picture of you as an applicant. This holistic approach may differ in other countries, but I will focus on applications to institutions in the United States. One very good way to build out a full application is with a strong set of extracurricular activities.
Everyone has different interests and things they may choose to do outside of academics, but I think there are some commonalities across them. Below are three different strategies to approach extracurriculars:
Find an activity that complements your overall story
When thinking about what you want to spend your time away from academics doing, it’s a good idea to choose an area that excites you, but that also complements your overall story. What I mean by story is that generally, you want to paint a picture of what makes you a unique addition to the college’s incoming class. Universities want a diverse pool of students, so having something about you that sticks out in a good way can help your case for admission. Extracurriculars help to round you out as an individual in such a way that you are able to stand out. Without extracurriculars, you might just blend in with every other applicant; with too eclectic a mix of activities, the admission counselors may not know how to think of you as an applicant. In addition, your extracurriculars can complement the story you tell when you write your application essays, so make sure you think about how your activity fits into your overall story, before you start something.
Excel in the activities you choose
This advice seems like a given, but if it were easy, then everyone would be first place in their state for their sports, instruments, or debates. That’s not the case, and there is a tangible difference between someone who was top in their region versus someone who just decided to halfheartedly try out a sport. It shows dedication, the ability to learn, and the capability to thrive and meet challenges. Every college loves that, and that’s because everyone wants a winner or at least someone who shows promise. It’s a two-way street, that as much as you want a great college, colleges want great students. In order for you to accomplish this, it may be necessary to scale back on quantity and choose what you think you can be very good at.
Lead others in your extracurricular choice
Lastly, I personally believe that given the chance, you should try and take a leadership position in the extracurricular that you find to be most important to you. Similar to the previous point, colleges want to pick those that show competence and leadership potential. A good way to signal that with extracurriculars is to be a captain in your sport, the president of your club, or the representative for your community. Leading also helps dispel any myths that you are not the future leader the college wants. In recent news, Harvard was alleged to discriminate against a particular minority group of applicants because they mistakenly believed they could not lead. Running 3 organizations can quickly disprove any historical or systematic myths that may work against you.
Overall, your extracurricular choice can be an important one because it will determine how you spend the limited time outside of academics you have. It’s important to decide wisely, and hopefully the above considerations will help you choose and also to thrive in whatever activity you choose!
We as mentors would be happy to help evaluate your current landscape and see where we can both make your life easier and your applications more impressive.
