In 2002, Kaavya Viswanathan wrote a book about her acceptance to Harvard; it was a book that would further fuel the big myth about extracurricular activities for college admissions.
The book became a bestseller and even had a plan to become a movie. It was a dream come true for just about any anxious parent who worried their heads off about their children’s future, so it was no surprise when the story became popular among said parents; this popularity was short-lived, however. The book had plagiarized content from many notable works, but that’s not the most shocking part. What is most shocking is that in the book a Harvard admissions officer claims that the author is “not well-rounded”; this cues her journey into college acceptance.
Oh boy: here we go.
This journey is one that we all unfortunately had an earful of: an applicant takes every second of their lives to apply for as many positions in clubs and extracurriculars for college applications as possible.
Except, that’s not how it works. At all. The myth that being well-rounded and good at “everything” is what colleges are looking for is outright wrong.
Though it may be the case when comparing competition years ago, extracurricular activities for college admissions DO NOT work that way. That ship has long sailed. Being “well-rounded” despite what many often slow college admissions counselors and parents think, is exactly the opposite of what great schools are searching for. Now, this requires clarification.
In short, it is not well-roundedness that is bad; it is the well-roundedness that does not have any redeeming qualities or impressive feats to demonstrate competence over other peers that college admissions officers have a distaste for. They want well-rounded individuals who, for lack of a better word, “have a life”, but they also want a specialist who is particularly skilled at one or a few things.
This does not mean that applicants should be geniuses at mathematics but not know how to tie their shoes, or that it is okay to be a master poet but never clean a single dish in your life. The trend that many people are blindly following, to their demise, is trying to fit in as a sort of “jack of all trades, master of none” type of applicant. They are pretty good at “stuff” but not exceptionally jaw-dropping at anything in particular. In the grand scheme of things, they’re sort of competitive, though not so much as the applicant who handles the rest of their lives decently but has one very powerful and unique trait about them that sets them apart from the rest of the application pool.
Without any further, we will be discussing how extracurricular activities for college admissions may sway universities and colleges away; we will also discuss what they REALLY want. This will reprogram you to apply to the college of your dreams the right way. We will be going into detail each item of the lists.
Outdated Information Counselors and Parents Have Been Spreading On Extracurricular Activities for College Admissions:
- Specializing in one field is not enough to attract the attention of college application officers.
This is wrong because a lot of the times college application officers KNOW that their applicants have their own lives. Remember: They are looking for competent people who are also NOT DRONES. They are not looking for people who simply want to get into a school as the sole reason for their hard work. They want people who are well-rounded not because they are applying for prestige, they are looking for well-roundedness in that they are normal people who are pleasant but have one particular field that they are majorly competent in.
- Specializing in as many extracurricular activities and academic fields as possible in order to have as many titles as possible.
Trying to fit in as many extracurriculars is one of the things applicants do which help admissions officers weed out bad applicants. They do NOT want those who refer quantity over quality, they want the opposite. The best applicants are those who prefer quality over quantity. Some counselors and college application advisors tell their clients that having many positions and titles will give them an edge in the application process; this can only hurt them though. Not only do they waste their time attending meetings that will give them no edge in the admissions process, they also waste the opportunity to use their energy to win competitions or take respectable and powerful positions in their clubs.
Here’s what the reality is like for college admissions officers:
- They are looking for students who are well rounded in that they are able to have a social life and live decently, BUT they should be specializing all their energy in only one or only a few fields of interest instead of spreading themselves out thin.
Well-roundedness does not mean that applicants should pepper their applications with any club and event they could find. The best way to approach extracurricular activities for college admissions is to demonstrate a healthy life balance of participating in other clubs or activities for fun, but investing all time on ONE field or activity.
A good example of this is an applicant who loves to play video games and play tennis: they may join a tennis team and attend club meetings at a video game club for fun, but they must also invest the majority of their time in another field that demonstrates his position of achievement. (such as a presidency in an active club or an award from a competition in chess.)
- They DO NOT want students who act “well-rounded” and spread themselves out thin by picking up every viable extracurricular activity and field just for the sake of having them to put as titles on the application process.
University admissions officers tend to have a sort of “second sense” for when things seem fishy in an applicant’s papers. As they go through hundreds upon thousands of people’s extracurricular activities for college admissions, they tend to be able to sniff out those who join school clubs and extracurriculars for the sake of having something to write in their application and those who join clubs out of passion and put in effort in said passions. As we said before, college admissions officers do not hate well-roundedness; they hate well-roundedness that kisses their feet and has no redeeming qualities or specialized qualities.
- They do not care about just any club or activity positions; what they do care about is powerful positions that took work and campaigning to achieve as well as awards and titles that required hard work and competing against other students. They want to know you are better than other students.
This is actually the sole purpose of extracurricular activities: to demonstrate which fields a particular applicant is more competent at than other students. Having occasional clubs and activities that do not have much significant value in your application is fine, but it is only when they are paired with leadership positions or awards from competitions that your application will hold any sway with admissions officers. Universities receive far too many applications with random extracurricular activities for college admissions optimization. The only way they will see the students they want, the ones who are more competent than the rest, is through extracurricular activities that “actually matter”.
These lists cover practically everything about the myth of extracurricular activities. In the end, the point of extracurriculars is to make you stand out among the rest of the application pool. No one wants to be a statistic; that’s what the descriptions boxes asking about your extracurricular activities are for, but far too often would applicants fill it in improperly. If you feel that your extracurriculars may not be best optimized for college admissions success (or you simply are not sure how to phrase your extracurricular activities in the boxes and personal statement essay section) you may want to discuss your background with an expert and schedule a consultation. This is vital if you are planning to use your years of hard work and effort to its maximum potential in getting you into the university of your dreams.
