What counts as strong/standard ECs?

So two related thoughts.

At highly-selective colleges, it appears there is often some sort of internal rating system, and it appears to me it often has a type of normal (or similar) distribution where most of the EC ratings are going to be clustered in the middle range, and then the highest ratings become very rare, such that even most admitted students do not have ECs like that. Here for example is what the Yale Admissions Podcast said:

MARK: –when it comes to things like your extracurricular activities and your letters of recommendation, we use a 9-point scale. So 9 is the strongest. 1 is the weakest. In practice, we primarily use the middle of a scale. You’re almost never going to see something that isn’t a 4, 5, 6, or 7–

HANNAH: Right.

MARK: –on a printed slate, even across hundreds of applications in a typical day.

HANNAH: Yeah. So for example, when we’re rating your extracurricular accomplishments, we occasionally see some super, super extraordinary extracurricular accomplishments, like an Olympic medal.

MARK: Yeah.

HANNAH: So we reserve those top, top ratings for something like that. Most people are going to fall in that middle range.

The second thing I would note is many valued ECs are not competitive in nature. Again the Yale Admissions Podcast has a great episode all about activities, and one thing they stress is they value many activities not competitive in nature, like work experience, volunteering, hobbies just for interest and self-improvement, and so on.

OK, then they kind of put this together in that podcast:

[Mark] And we use a rating system. It is sort of a shorthand, though. I want to make clear, this is designed to help us communicate with other members of the admissions committee. It is not being fed into some sort of rubric somewhere.
[Hannah] Right.
[Mark] And we do not have a formula that’s going to award a certain number of points for being a varsity athlete or being the lead in the school musical, or something like that. It is a nine point scale, but the overwhelming majority of applicants, including admitted students, cluster right in the middle. We’re using it to communicate quickly to the members of the committee when they’re looking at our printed slate. So we talked about this in an earlier episode about committee. We can look down a sheet of paper at a series of applicants and get a sense of where the strengths lie in a particular application. It’s like I said, a little bit like reading the matrix, and this can be one of those things, where if we’re about to talk about an applicant and I see a really high value on this extracurricular rating, I know, oh, the student has really distinguished themselves there. But that is not the case for a lot of applicants, including a lot of our admitted students.
[Hannah] Right, right. So just so you know, if you completely left this section blank, you might get a one on that scale. A student who is active in a typical collection of activities without a whole lot of distinction might get a five, and someone who is extremely unusual in their commitment or distinction would get a nine, but that might be an Olympic athlete or a Tony Award winner or something like that.
[Mark] I have never seen a nine.
[Reed] Yes.
[Mark] I don’t know if you have, I have never seen a nine. I have never given a nine, I’ve never been in committee with a nine. I know they exist, but–
[Hannah] Yeah.
[Mark] It’s very, very rare.
[Hannah] Right. Maybe one or two a year.
[Mark] Yeah, I would say probably 99% of our admitted students are rated somewhere between a four and a seven on the scale. And you heard that correctly, right. We admit students who haven’t really distinguished themselves with their activities outside of the classroom. It might be for some students a really important part of their application, or it might not be very important at all. There might be other parts of the application that are really making the case for the student. Remember, it’s not part of a formula.
[Reed] While this place is indeed a place to brag a little bit about yourself, I think it’s important to remember that this is only in service of a bigger goal, which is to help us understand who you are. The context that you’re coming from, and help us see how you’ll engage on our campus. College students are super, super engaged, active people outside of the classroom. Many people are going to tell you that they learned so much from their extracurriculars and their college activities, as sort of compared to their courses. They’ve learned lessons in leadership and collaboration and creativity. And so we want students who are really going to be engaged outside of the classroom here. You’re coming to learn, yes, but you’re also coming to live and to engage in a community.
[Hannah] Yeah.

OK, so that’s a lot to take in. And in fact, a lot of similar information and insight came out of the Harvard litigation. And if you start paying close attention to what AOs from many selective colleges say about activities, with this sort of insight in mind, it starts to kind of click together.

And I would summarize my takeaway as follows. There are some applicants who get admitted to these colleges with some very high level of achievement in some competitive activity as a main factor, the sorts of people who might get an 8 or 9 from Yale, but they are very rare–like probably 5% or less of admits. These are your Olympic medalists, and similarly rare competitors.

Some people are also getting admitted in like the 4 or 5 range (“active in a typical collection of activities without a whole lot of distinction”), but I would also suggest that such people at the most selective colleges would face longer odds without something else unusually strong in their application.

Then I think the vast majority of admits to these colleges are doing better than that Yale 4-5, but less than their 8-9. So Yale 6-7s.

And the emphasis at that point is on having a clear vision of how this person will be able to come into a community of highly-active, highly-engaged people, and participate enthusiastically and contribute back meaningfully to that community.

And there are many, many different ways of showing these colleges you will be such a person. Competitive activities is one way. But there are many other sorts of activities too. And it can be a mix.

But I think sometimes, some people, get this idea the only way to do it is with competitions. I think that is wrong, and also potentially counter-productive. Because frankly, to get to an 8-9 score with competitions is extremely hard, because it is extremely hard to impress these colleges at that level. And I think reading all this carefully, it becomes clear most people who devote themselves to competitions may at most end up in the 6-7 range, along with people who didn’t do that sort of thing at all.

Which is fine, but then they are also going to be looking at your academics, and your recommendations, and whether you are known as nice and helpful, and whether you developed into truly important leadership roles, and whether your school will really miss you when you are gone, and so on. And I think sometimes the kids killing themselves to get individual competition awards have neglected all that other stuff. And because realistically all that didn’t really get them outside that 6-7 range anyway, they may not have really maximized their chances at admission.

OK, so, first, do what you love. Second, do try to challenge and develop yourself within what you do, whatever that means for that type of activity. And third, think about whether this is just a thing for you–which is fine sometimes–or whether this shows some sort of community engagement that could translate in some way to an active college community. And try to do some of that sort of community stuff, in a way that would be truly meaningful to you and your community, and not just checking a box.

And do well in your classes, and be nice and helpful, and take on leadership positions where relevant, and so on.

And then I think you will have done what you can for these colleges.

3 Likes