<p>To see who is the most well rounded?
-All it does is force students to give up their lives to get into college. Most people I know just do it for college nothing else.</p>
<p>Most colleges don’t care about ECs. Some selective American colleges care about them because most of their applicants have good grades and test scores, and they don’t have enough room for all of them. So they need a more nuanced way to figure out who to accept. </p>
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<p>No. Being a specialist is better than being a generalist who isn’t really committed to anything (but being a generalist is better than having no ECs at all).
Ideally people’s ECs should be things they like. For the most part, there’s no reason to do something you don’t like (though you should try new things). It doesn’t matter what your ECs are, as long as you become accomplished in them.</p>
<p>So your saying I don’t have to do anything? Nice!!!</p>
<p>If you’re not looking at selective (American) colleges, then you probably won’t need ECs for college admissions, but it bothers me that you see this as a chore. </p>
<p>What colleges are you looking at? You can find out whether they care about ECs by looking at their Common Data Set.</p>
<p>UCLA/UCSD</p>
<p>Why does it bother you?</p>
<p>UCLA says extracurriculars are “important.”
[AIM</a> | UCLA](<a href=“http://www.aim.ucla.edu/profiles/cds.aspx#cdsC]AIM”>http://www.aim.ucla.edu/profiles/cds.aspx#cdsC)</p>
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<p>Because being excited about not having to do ECs either means you have an unnecessarily limited view of ECs (pretty much anything productive you do outside of school is an EC, including a lot of hobbies as long as it’s not something really passive like reading), or you would literally go home and do nothing every day if not for college admissions.</p>
<p>I’d rather be with friends, read, watch TVs, etc. So basically I do need to do ECs. lame af</p>
<p>Btw colleges want to see how much someone gives up their life to get in?</p>
<p>It’s not about doing twenty million things or spending all your time running around doing things you don’t care about…you can do one or two things at a high level (i.e. you accomplish things that require talent/skill/commitment rather than just shallow participation) and be fine, but they do want to accept people who view productive activities as an important part of their life.</p>
<p>So like volunteering at a hospital (which I’m dreading) and American Red Cross club (can be fun) is alright?</p>
<p>My dad brings the same point as you on a daily basis. Like halcyonheather said, America’s elite receive amazing scores but need to differentiate somehow. He also says that international colleges are not nearly as holistic. Get a 60% on the TSA and get an interview call from Oxford.</p>
<p>If you look at ECs as a chore, something you dread/think are stupid…then don’t do them.</p>
<p>I would hope that most of the people doing ECs are doing them because they like the activity/mission of the EC…not to pad a college application.</p>
<p>(I think ECs can sometimes be beneficial even if your initial motives are bad…the college admissions process can get people to try things they wouldn’t otherwise have tried, and that’s a good thing. I started out doing ECs just for college admissions because I’m shy and I didn’t see any other reason to spend time being nervous around other kids when going home and being alone was an option. But I ended up liking most of the stuff I did.)</p>
<p>@halcyontheather: I guess, but I think looking at ECs as a mere tool to get into college seems like a shallow reason to do so…an attempt to “game the system” if you will.</p>
<p>I have a follow-up question: Don’t most people’s parents “make” them do at least some ECs? Perhaps it’s a factor of where you live, but in our neck of the woods, it seems like parents totally make their kids do something…whether it’s sports or clubs or internships or volunteering/service.</p>
<p>If kids are only doing to ECs for college, then of course it’s a shallow reason for joining. The thing is, most of the time that doesn’t change the positive outcomes they get out of it. If they choose something they enjoy, they meet new friends and have fun doing something more productive than sitting at home watching TV.</p>
<p>Also, for your second question, I do think it’s a factor of where you live. In my area kids’ parents only make them join things when they’re like 5. Once they get into middle school parents seem to stop caring (or trying).</p>
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<p>That’s very area-dependent. I mean, if your parents work full time and haven’t been to college and have very litle how competitive college admissions work, they probably won’ be ‘making’ their children do anything. If the student works after school to support his or her family or has to watch younger siblings, they’re also probably not being ‘forced’ into traditional extracurriculars.</p>
<p>I would encourage you to participate in ECs that you’re passionate about and interested in. It’s not about the number you do, but he impact you make. There’s not a lot of value to doing ten different things for one week each in freshman year-- the impact comes from deeply engaging in one or two and making impacts in them.</p>
<p>I used to look at ECs this way. Then I started doing ones I liked and am having a great time and every day I get to look forward to participating. </p>
<p>Anything you are interested in?</p>
<p>As someone said, top colleges get too many students with excellent scores; at that point, ECs are used to distinguish which students should be admitted.</p>
<p>Also, not everyone thinks of doing ECs as an obligation. For example, my friend loves writing poetry, and has gotten published; while this is an EC she could put down on her college application, she genuinely just enjoys writing poetry.</p>
<p>What’s the point of ECs? There is no “point”. You do each for different reasons. You play Varsity Basketball because you enjoy playing basketball. You’re president of a volunteer club because it’s fun and gratifying to get some friends together and help people out. You start a company because you want to successfully make money and/or create a new product. I could go on forever.</p>
<p>Why do colleges want to see your ECs? They want the candidates that essentially do awesome stuff.</p>
<p>Think of yourself as an admissions officer at a prestigious university. You want to admit people who will represent your school well and maintain its high reputation. Wouldn’t you pick a student who enjoys learning and takes pride in helping others over a student who doesn’t? Wouldn’t you pick the student who positively influenced others through volunteer work or demonstrated their drive to succeed through sports or similar instead of a student who would “rather be with friends, read, watch TV”?</p>
<p>I think of it as a way to show other parts of yourself that gpa and test scores cannot.
ECs are good till the point that you do tons of them solely for the purpose of an application booster rather than because you actually like it.</p>