I don’t know, and it’s a bit troubling. We had what I thought was a good thread on this last year.
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My DD grew up in an affluent suburb. Most kids in our town worked regular jobs, my DD included. This is actually the norm. Please recognize that the college admissions rat race people are so focused on here and lamenting is not the norm and really applies only to a small percentage of students across the country. It seems that too many are losing sight of that fact. And parents can and should opt out. It’s no different than trying to keep up with the Joneses - it’s a choice.
Same goes for expensive club and travel sports. Again, just a small percentage of families are participating. And you can opt out. I put my foot down with my DD when everyone on her competitive team in 8th grade was leaving the local (competitive) league for a more expensive travel league, many chasing college athletic scholarships. Since she did not want to play in college, we opted out. She sulked for a few days then got over it and found plenty to occupy her free time in high school - things she found interesting and had nothing to do with getting into college. Then when college application time came around, her essays were authentic.
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No need to worry about our personal anecdotes; the government says 55% of those aged 16-24 were employed in July 2023.
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Thanks for helping catch a newbie up!
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That’s still over half…So not terribly unusual.
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Just over half? During the summer? For high school, college, and early post college age? No, I do not think that is very many at all.
Ah, I found the high school only info on Zippia. 30% of high school kids hold a job before graduating now, down from 50% in 2000.
Some of my own thoughts on the ethical issues (I’m a professor) and some of the popular services are mostly in these comments if you’re interested:
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Is that counting any type of job during high school? 70% have not had any type of summer job or anything where they were paid in any way, not even that one time they got paid to babysit, walk the neighbor’s dog or mow the neighbor’s lawn?
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Interesting. I literally do not know a single teen who never had a paying job of that sort. Waitressing, retail, grocery store, hostessing, whatever. Not one. Regardless of family income. All the kids here work at least in the summer. How do kids who don’t work go out to the movies or dinner with their friends? How do they get that fifth piercing in their ear? Put gas in the car?Do parents actually give teens spending money for that kind of thing? My kid started working at 15 (with a bit of a gap during 2020 but of course she wasn’t spending much in 2020 either) and I haven’t given her money since then except as an occasional (very occasional) gift. All her friends are the same. At college too from what I can tell.
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Or if sports were just an ordinary EC (like scouting, arts, volunteer or paid work, etc.), not one that can lead to a recruited athlete hook, or be a privileged EC over other ECs (e.g. Harvard has a separate admissions rating for athletics versus ECs generally).
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i live in berkeley, and our high school bhs also has all kinds of kids. it is often touted as a school with a lot of diversity, and correctly so. i am not sure about the crime scene in that high school.
bhs benefits by having a lot of parents who are either academics, or have been in academia or very close to it. i think those parents are likely to be less crazy about putting stress on the kids. it also sends a lot of students to top tier colleges and no college at all. i also believe MIT and CalTech might have relatively better admission system, although i am not sure.
Yes, I’m talking about BHS, too. 
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I don’t know how they phrased the question, or whether someone who babysat once would even respond affirmatively to such a question. I rather doubt it. In any event, a steep decline since 2000 indicates something is going on.
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I agree, if 70% are indeed not working at all in HS, that’s a lot!
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When I reviewed resumes of college kids applying for IB jobs and interviewed them, I always valued varsity sports participation above most other ECs because I knew college athletics involved very real time commitments. I had no idea how much time someone spent tutoring people or belonging to some club. They can make up anything they want and I wouldn’t know.
I always assumed that colleges looked at high school varsity sports in a similar way (and I am excluding recruited athletes, who are in their own bucket). You can’t skip practice; you can’t miss games; you aren’t making it home before dinner. If you have three basketball games, a physics test, a math quiz, and a history paper all happening in the same week, you have to figure out a way to make it all work.
Other ECs (and jobs) of course have large time commitments as well, but in many cases I would think there would be less certainty about how much time is really being spent on some of these activities (including non-school sponsored club sports).
Are AOs generally cynical about ECs? Do they value a verifiable and inflexible time commitment like a school varsity sport over a less verifiable and more malleable one? Or do they take most of what applicants claim at face value?
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I only know about this incident because I have a relative that attends BHS. BTW, both parents are academics. 
yes i am sure it is a bit tough school. from what i understand the academics is not too bad there, although the chance a kid falls in a bad company is non-trivial.
Yale to require standardized tests as well so the socioeconomically disadvantaged don’t have to show the curated ECs that the wealthy can
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Perhaps one day they will come around on legacy preferences too.
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What is worse in many cases is that even for the girls that get to play at the next level there tends to be academic mismatch. Sometimes the families will choose a school just because they have an “offer” without regard to academic fit. My D’s team that made it to the state championships in the big school division had 8 players make it to the next level, 2 in D1, a couple in D2, 1 NAIA, my D at a NESCAC and the rest in juco’s. Only 3 girls graduated from college at their original school. The 2 biggest “tragedies” were my D’s best friend, a first team All State player (a solid “B” student) who got steered to an NAIA school by her travel coach because of his relationship with the NAIA coach. That college coach changed jobs prior to her sophomore year and she was stuck in the middle of nowhere. She dropped out but did manage to get an associate degree through our local CC. The other girl was also an All Stater who was an “A” student (aspiring to be a doctor) one year behind D. She went to a D1 and just did not cut it athletically which affected her academically. I had tried to get her parents to consider D3 (at my D’s school) where she would have dominated (not too many NESCAC/D3 pitchers that throw in the mid 60’s). I suspect her FA at the D3 would have made her COA equivalent or less than her COA with the athletic scholarship. Here I think it was a matter of ego and her parents’ considering D3 beneath their daughters talent.
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