Extracurriculars completely moot for PhD admission?

ConnorR15
Sat, 04 Aug 2012 17:54:58 +0000

NSF = National Science Foundation? and GRF = graduate research fellowship?

Thank you all for the feedback; it’s very helpful. Out of curiosity – since we’re getting into specifics – does it make a difference that the charity I work with tries to encourage literacy in developing countries by building libraries and supplying books? I realize that it’s not exactly inherently science-related, but it is a form of outreach that aims to encourage students to be academically minded. As someone whose interest in science was first sparked by books that I got my hands on when I was younger, I know the power those books carry in the hands of inquiring minds, and I could easily try and put a more science-related spin on the work of the charity – supplying more science books.

Forgive the redundancy, but just to ensure that I’ve grasped the wisdom that everyone has shared with me: extracurriculars don’t matter at all for PhD admissions, but science related EC’s do matter for the NSF application?