Lets say that two students are applying to a competitive school.
Student 1 has a GPA of 3.7 and ACT score of 32.
Student 2 has a GPA of 3.8 and ACT score of 34.
Both of them take hard classes (same amount of APs) Same background (race, high school, income, etc).
Student 1 has a lot of extracurriculars (varsity sport, 3 leadership positions for senior year, summer internship). Student 2 only has a few extracurriculars (2 clubs, but no leadership, no internship)
If both students demonstrate an interest in the same schools and programs, would the college by any chance pick Student 1 with ok academics but stellar extracurriculars?? Or Student 2 with better stats?
Depends on the college. At most colleges, both get in and get into the honors college.
At highly selective colleges, neither, one, or both.
3.7/32 is more or less equivalent to 3.8/34 at most colleges. 3.5/30 with national level leadership or achievement v. 3.8/34 and 2hs club participation would provide better odds to the former but a likely denial to both.
Extracurriculars aren’t evaluated on quantity. They’re evaluated on impact.
One EC where the student is all alone and does something that matters counts for more than doing lots of things.
Being on a varsity team only matters if the college coach wants to recruit the student. Summer internship at your dad’s best friend is less valuable than a minimum wage job done throughout junior and senior year.
A high school club leadership is not equivalent to volunteering every week and being able to grow from it, but most importantly not just help out but make a difference thanks to an initiative. High school clubs are good but how I you interact with adults?
Your definition of ‘stellar ECs’ is ok for universities and LACs ranked 50-125 but would be ‘basic expectation*’ for top 50 universities and LACs.
Read the results threads on universities’ forums you’re interested in. You’ll see what I mean.
Internships aren’t that important so they’re not a basic expectation. Leadership is expected.
You have to refine your thinking. Basically the case you present above shows a yet insufficient understanding of what makes a candidate stand out. That’s okay - it’s difficult, it’s implicit, it requires a lot of critical thinking, a lot of reading and deciphering. Get a Fiske guide, Admissions possible, read the website Essay hell, read this website assiduously, especially the college selection and the parents forum (stay away from the chance forum except as a game, as it’s the blind leading the blind or, HS students making predictions on a process they’ve not gone through yet let alone reflected upon). Keep asking questions.
At schools like Emory, your ECs and your LORs are actually ranked as more important than your SAT/ACT score. If you’re planning on applying to a school with a holistic process, then your ECs are going to play a pretty big role in painting a picture of you as an individual. It sounds like you are in this position. Honestly, I think a college would choose the person with ECs. If you have no ECs, except for attending two club meetings, you should have a 3.9 UW - 4.0 UW, unless you have some underlying circumstance. In some adcoms eyes too, that may paint you as a follower and maybe as far as lazy. They have plenty of smart kids, but they want the movers and shakers. Average students/people don’t go to Princeton.