Do you see this at your child's high school? [regarding GPA / SAT scatterplots of college admission / rejection]

[vwlizard]

@cloudymind

I kind of feel the meanness from this. Unless you truly know the Val does not have any EC. Even if that is true, it is hard to be the only reason for the 16 rejections. Some kids with outstanding ECs and high Stats receive blank rejections too in a bad day.

When I think of ECs on a application for a highly rejective college, my eye (untrained and not an AO) tends to immediately sort them into 3 buckets.

1. Those that you would expect from a kid applying here.
2. Those that are obvious fillers (the applicant doesn’t seem passionate about it)/ or overstated (non-profits, etc)
3. Something that catches my interest because it’s not something you see everyday and the kid speaks passionately about it. It could be something like a non-traditional sport like roller skating or badminton, or a niche interest like entymology or food science.

For some people “excellent ECs” means a long list. But often that list is no different than 80-90% of the other applicants unless they have a #3 and can show their passion for it.