<p>I am applying to Yale next year and I was wondering if year-round athletics would be sufficient ECs. The following is a basic run down of most significant awards.
Cross country: all state
Indoor track: state qualifier
Outdoor track: regional qualifier
From talking to coaches, I am just under the level where a coach would give me full support in admissions. So, the main point of this thread is if year round sports at this level for all of high school could be the only major EC I would need. I am also doing research this summer and have done modest volunteer work, but that is about it for other major ECs.</p>
<p>Athletics are great extra-curricular activities. Doing them year round, for many years, demonstrates a high level of passion and commitment. It’s also very impressive that you have been named all state, state qualifier and regional qualifier, and by themselves, they are more than enough for your application, especially if you can write passionately about them in the 150 word Common Application question about Extra Curricular Activities.</p>
<p>I’ll give you an honest answer: I’m not persuaded that ecs that are exclusively sports are that great if you’re not good enough to play for the school. It sounds like you might be good enough to run for Yale, even though perhaps not good enough to be recruited. If that’s the case, it will probably help you in admissions.</p>
<p>But in general, I think that showing passion and commitment isn’t enough for highly selective colleges to be impressed by ECs–they also want to see high levels of personal achievement. So, commitment and passion for, say, violin-playing, isn’t going to help you that much if you are last chair in a non-competitive orchestra.</p>
<p>OP, your case is hard to judge, because you do have significant personal achievements–the question is, how good are they? That’s hard to tell from what you’ve posted.</p>
<p>Thank you both for responding. I agree completely with Hunt that commitment is not enough. So I know that 4 year lettering really does not mean much, but I am unsure of how much my awards will matter. I only see two types of athletes on results threads, 1. Kids who are varsity but no awards or 2. All Americans getting accepted with 30s on their ACT. I am an no way counting on my ECs to push me through, but I am just curious if my ECs will be a significant plus. As for more detail the awards I posted are for around top 15 in the state if that helps at all. I have also gotten recruiting letters from u penn, Columbia, Navy, and notre dame if that helps with running ability. Does anyone have experience with admissions as an athlete at around my level of competitiveness.?</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, my son played baseball during high school; he was the catcher. The team practiced year round (fall ball, winter workouts, spring break training in Florida, spring season up north). He was accepted at many D3 schools where he could have played varsity ball, but he was not good enough to be recruited for D1. He’s now playing on Yale’s Club Baseball Team and is very happy. </p>
<p>If you have recruiting letters from other schools and you want to run in college, I would be looking at them first, and put Yale on the back burner.</p>
<p>The other schools that are recruiting me have much better teams than Yale does, which confuses me as to why the coach won’t support me in admissions. Though I would rather run at other schools, Yale is by far my first choice in every other regard.</p>
<p>I understand the dilemma, but your choices boil down to: (1) Apply to Yale and be judged like everyone else on your academics (with running as your sole EC), or (2) Apply elsewhere and be judged on your running and your academics. The truth is, you can be happy anywhere.</p>