All these people accepted into T20s have an extracurricular associated with their school such as debate team, var sport, or just a club leader. But honestly I don’t really like my high school enough to participate in any of these. Now some of yall might say just do it, but I really am incapable. My counselor is always talking about how I never participate with the school, but I literally hate my school. This is sounding like a rant now so to sum it up, do I need to associate my extracurriculars to my school?
ABSOLUTELY NOT. Extracurriculars are things you do outside the classroom, and by no means are confined to school grounds.
While a lot of people do ECs in school, it is 100% okay to do ECs that are unrelated to your school or not hosted on school grounds. As long as you are passionate about what you are doing, and can convey that, you will be successful in applications.
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No, if you want to do stuff outside of HS that is fine.
Many HS kids do HS stuff just because it is convenient, it is with their friends, it is well-designed for HS kids, or so on. So many HS kids accepted into whatever colleges have done HS stuff, but that is not a requirement it is just a predictable outcome due to the (usual) appeal of HS stuff.
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Do you work part time?
Do you participate at your church or synagogue?
Do you have a social group outside of high school? Like D&D? Scouting?
Do you volunteer at a food bank, library children’s center/Senior center?
Do you walk dogs?
You don’t have to go to a T20 to be successful. You have to remember that the top 20 schools get hundreds of thousands of applications and a lot of students are rejected from them and it has nothing to do with EC’s, high GPAs; it’s called supply and demand. There isn’t enough space for all the kids that want to go to these 20 schools. So a lot of kids get rejected.
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For sure I do none of those things except the part time at home depot and a small side hustle reselling sneakers. But you need like 10 extracurriculars which makes worried cause i barely got any.
Never thought about that I can’t lie my school lacks any support which is why I kind of detest it. That makes 100% sense though for sure.
So like my counselor said I don’t need to “participate with your school” cause shes always rambling about how I contribute nothing to school.
The colleges respect kids that have part-time jobs because it shows that they can hold a job, be punctual, follow directions, All while going to school and studying at the same time.
You don’t need 1 million EC’s. The colleges understand that a lot of kids are saving money for college, so they’re not going to fault you if the only thing you do is work. They like that you’re gaining valuable work experience and if you have to take a job on campus at the college, you’ll have experience.
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Wouldn’t an internship be preferred though? i’m thinking of doing a part time at starbucks, I read summer job for some reason thats my bad, which is home depot currently.
I had one child that worked at the zoo.
He got into Caltech.
I had one child that worked at SeaWorld and at an independent coffee shop, she got into Yale.
I have another child who worked at a luxury hotel making beds, she got into medical school. None of them had internships until they got into college.
I’m not saying that you’ll get into the top 20s. I’m just saying my kids all worked part time jobs while in high school to save money for college.
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You don’t need a lot of ECs. A job is a great EC to have, valued by many colleges.
Make sure your counselor knows you have other ECs, it will be important when they write their counselor LoR.
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Your school “lacks any support,” yet you seem to have a counselor there whom you are engaging with and who is noticing and expressing concern with your detachment from the school community? That’s support.
If I were in your shoes, based on your description of the conversations, I might be more concerned about what your counselor and teachers might write in their recommendations and their Common App questionnaires.
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Nope. Both of our kids had music as their most significant EC. They were in the HS band…but most activities were outside of school. Precollege ensembles, instrument lessons, auditioned children’s choir, chamber ensembles, summer programs.
Both were accepted to the colleges of choice.
I will say…I hope you are looking colleges that aren’t in the top 20 also…as suggested in one of your other threads.
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Who told you that you need 10 ECs? That simply isn’t true. If you have one in depth EC, that’s plenty.
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A job isn’t with school. Walking dogs at the shelter likely not with school although some have humane societies. Boys and girls club. Hospitals. Community orchestras or theatres.
Of course not - you do you.
And top worry about top 20. You don’t like hs. You may not like specific colleges. Find the one that feels right for you.
Also it’s quality, not quantity. You want tenure and impact. One job four years and you took on more responsibility is better than 10 random clubs where you made no impact.
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Extracurriculars like your job at HD definitely count!
However, I do think you need to be a bit careful with your counselor and teachers. You will need to get recommendations from them! I think it’s totally valid to not participate in school activities, but you probably need to sell yourself to your counselor a little and tell them what you are doing outside of school and perhaps explain why you haven’t been more involved.
Give some thought to what it is about your HS experience that makes you feel disconnected. When looking at colleges, make sure you are looking at schools where you could be more involved. College will be a much much better experience if you are invested in your school.
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Yep. OP, your posts on CC about grades and filling the slots for ECs on the Common App indicate a “check the boxes” approach to college admissions. (Unweighted 4.0? Check. Ten ECs? Check.). It does not work that way.
If you establish that you are capable of meeting the academic standards of a school through strong grades (which you have), a rigorous curriculum, and strong test scores, the review becomes qualitative. Who is this person? Are they making an impact? How will they contribute to the campus community? Can the admissions officer envision you as an active and constructive participant in campus life?
Can a job and some entrepreneurial activity be valuable reflections of you and how you express your talents? Of course they can.
I would just encourage you to step back from a tactical view of your application and your focus on how you are going to populate each field on it. Look at the bigger picture. What is the story of you? What makes you tick? Why would a college admit you over the thousands of other academically qualified applicants?
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Yes, and I think in cases where kids felt like their HS did not have the resources to support their interests (quite common in the real world, if less common in social media circles where most of us used relatively well-resourced secondary schools), that can actually be a very positive narrative.
Like, you showed initiative to do things outside of school that would be important to you (initiative and self-motivation are some of the top characteristics colleges look for), and now you are really looking forward to the opportunity to get involved in the activities at a highly resourced college (which residential colleges are always hoping to get out of their students).
But as everyone is suggesting, ideally you can get your teachers and counselor on board with this basic narrative.
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Always good to make a brag sheet or resume etc. so when you ask your teachers for a recommendation and your counselor needs to right one - they know what you’re about outside the classroom.
Most likely don’t know most of what their kids do.
So you make them aware of what you did - and what you accomplished in each of those activities.
Don’t embellish and don’t add stuff that’s not real. You want quality.
You want them to speak to your qualities as an individual.
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A counselor who always puts me down, telling me my grades are poor and on top of that not having extracurriculars will lead me to no where in life is not good support. Please don’t make assumptiosn just cause I have a counselor.