What Extracurriculars Do Colleges Look For?
The drive home from information night
A mother leaves a college information night at her daughter's high school. In the hallway, another parent mentioned that her son had founded a nonprofit and spent the summer in a hospital research lab.
On the drive home she goes through her own daughter's activities. Four years of marching band. A weekend job at a garden center. Looking after two younger cousins on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Next to a nonprofit and a research lab, it sounds like very little.
It is a stronger list than she thinks, and the reason is in what admissions offices say they are looking for.
What admissions offices say
The colleges that publish their thinking on activities say much the same thing.
- Stanford says that exceptional depth in one or two activities may show more than minimal participation in five or six clubs. It also says that work and family responsibilities "are as important as any other extracurricular activity."
- MIT puts it this way: "We don't expect applicants to do a million things. Choose quality over quantity."
- Turning the Tide, a report from the Harvard Graduate School of Education written with admissions offices, asks colleges to value the quality of activities over their number, and to count contributions to a student's family, such as caring for younger siblings or working to provide income.
None of them names an activity that students should have. They describe how a student takes part, and they leave the choice of activity open.
It also helps to keep activities in proportion. In a NACAC survey of four-year colleges, about half rated extracurricular activities as considerably or moderately important, and only 6.5% chose "considerably". Grades and courses carry far more weight. Activities add to the picture of the student, and they rarely make up for a weak transcript.
Four things that make any activity stronger
If the type of activity is not what matters, what does? In our reading of what colleges describe, four qualities matter most. They apply to a sport, a club, a job or a family duty in the same way.
1. Time
The student has stayed with the activity for years. Three or four years in one place shows that the interest is real and that the student keeps going when it stops being new. One semester in each of six clubs cannot show that.
2. Responsibility
Other people rely on the student for something. A title is not required. The question is whether something would go wrong if the student did not show up. A cashier who is trusted to open the store alone has responsibility. A club vice president with no duties does not.
3. A result
Something exists or has changed because the student was there. It can be an award, but it does not have to be. A new display the manager decided to keep, a younger student who can now read music, or a team that lost fewer parts before competitions are all results.
4. An idea of the student's own
At some point the student stopped only doing what was asked and started something or changed something. It can be small. Proposing a new way to run rehearsals counts, and so does offering a neighbor's child a weekly lesson.
An activity does not need all four. Most strong ones have two or three.
The same list, read a second time
Here are the three activities from the drive home, first as the mother pictured them and then as they could honestly be described.
| Activity | As she pictured it | As it really is | Qualities it shows |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marching band | Member for four years | Four years, and section leader in 11th grade. She ran the summer rehearsals for the nine new clarinet players | Time, responsibility |
| Garden center job | Worked weekends | Two years of weekends. She is trusted to open the store alone on Sundays, and she reorganized the seed display in a way the manager kept | Time, responsibility, a result, her own idea |
| Looking after cousins | Babysitting | Every Tuesday and Thursday evening for three years, so her aunt could work a late shift. She taught the older cousin to read music | Time, responsibility, a result |
Nothing was added to the list. The second description simply says what she did, how long she did it, and who depended on her.
Jobs and family responsibilities count
Many students leave paid work and family duties off their applications because these do not feel like achievements. They should be on the list.
Stanford says so directly, in the sentence quoted above, and adds that it wants to understand the impact a student has had "at your job, in your family, in your school, and in the larger community." Turning the Tide asks colleges to treat caring for siblings, taking on household duties and working to provide income as real contributions.
When describing them, give the same facts as for any other activity: how many hours a week, for how many years, and who depended on you.
Three things that matter less than families think
- The number of activitiesA longer list does not read as a stronger one. Stanford and MIT both say this in plain words.
- The title"Founder" and "president" are only as strong as the work behind them. A reader looks for what the student did, and a title with nothing behind it adds very little.
- The priceNo college quoted here asks for a paid summer program or a trip abroad. Stanford says it looks at how students have used what is available to them in their own school and community.
How Pursiva helps
Most families make the same mistake as the mother in the car. They compare their list with someone else's, and miss what is already strong in their own.
Pursiva starts from what the student already does. Its Activities module records each activity with the time involved, the responsibility and the results, including jobs and family duties. For each one it suggests a realistic next step, such as taking on a piece of real responsibility or trying an idea of the student's own.
It also connects the activities to the rest of the application. Pursiva helps the student find the theme that runs through what they do (Pursiva calls it a Core Narrative), shows which activities support it, and uses it to guide choices about courses, essays and the college list. The activities then read as part of one story, and not as a separate list.
The daughter in this article needed no new activity. Her list already had time, responsibility and results in it, and she only needed to describe them.
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