Do you need 10 great ECs to get into top colleges?

MWolf
Thu, 18 Jun 2020 03:33:43 +0000

5364bear;d-2189601:

I have a few (4-5) very unique and strong activities that I’ve been commited to, but beyond that all of my remaining activity spots will just be clubs and volunteering that I’ve participated in briefly.

That sounds about right. ECs aren’t boxes that you need to tick for colleges to consider you, and colleges acceptance isn’t a prize for the highest grades or the “best” or “most” ECs.

Colleges prefer higher grades, because they indicate that a student is good at academics, and is more likely to succeed than a student who struggles with more challenging classes.

Colleges use your ECs to see who you are, what you can do, and whether you are able to do stuff which wasn’t assigned to you in class. There are ECs which take a huge amount of time, and don’t leave much time for anything else. Dancing and sports are huge time hogs, and don’t allow for more than one or two serious activities, much less 9 more.

So, if you have an EC like dance or swimming, etc, you don’t need to have another three ECs, much less nine. If your ECs take less time, three to five is a very good number. It gives you the ability to engage in very different activities, but also have enough time to actually focus on each.

A pattern like yours - a few activities which you dabbled in, and four or five on which you focused looks like somebody who has interests and passions, but also explores other possibilities.

There are a very few people, who are able to juggle 8 or more different ECs, especially is they are seasonal, so a person isn’t engaging at all 8 at the same time, or some are in the summer. However, there simply are not enough hours in a school week for a student to actually be engaged seriously in 10 ECs.

After you consider classroom time, homework, meals, sleep, travel to and from school, you are left with 45 hours, which includes week end time. Assuming that a normal teen wants to spend some times with friends and family doing stuff which is neither schools stuff nor EC stuff, there is not enough time left to engage seriously in 10 ECs.

So no, trying to have 10 ECs will not make you a more “attractive” applicant. the opposite is much more likely.

Your ECs. as you described them, are strong enough for most schools. If your GPA is good and your schedule was rigorous, you are competitive for top LACs, though they are reaches for anybody.