If your child was accepted at a Top 20 School, what were their extracurriculars?

[Anonymous]

I have been hearing about some amazing extracurriculars from rising seniors lately ... one kid I know came up with some AI service that analyzes financial data and already has corporate clients using it, another kid has published some ground breaking research in a very selective peer reviewed journal.

Of course I know that excellent grades and 1500+ SAT scores are a must, but I am really surprised by the level of the ECs ...
If your child made it into a Top school, would you mind sharing their extracurriculars?

[Anonymous]

This subreddit tends to overfocus on ECs being impressive. Activities can be ordinary. Focus on experience and personal development. You do you. Some other kid's ECs are not going to make sense for you.

Two kids at T20s with speech and debate, robotics, random school clubs, and hobbies. Neither had a job. Limited community service hours.

[Anonymous]

What does your kid like about those specific schools? That is how you have to approach all applications and how you highlight activities. Your application cannot be random scatter shot to all 'ranked' schools. Once your kid starts looking it is highly likely a lot of those schools swill be dropped from the list.

[Anonymous]

My son got into T10. Regular extracurriculars. Two sports, both varsity all four years and was the captain of one. President of a school club. SAT tutor. Member of Marh team with a first in state award. Nothing like what parents here say. But, he had a 35 and a 1570 and was NMSF and had top grades in top rigor and was top 10% of his class. I think that last sentence is why he got in. Not the activities.

[Anonymous]

Advanced Jazz band. Composed music in free time. That's all. No other clubs, sports, etc.

Yale.

[Anonymous]

NP I see posts like OP’s on here so often but at our school (independent feeder school not in DVM or NYC), those kinds of ECs are almost unheard of. Kids play varsity sports, do things like write for the school paper, theater, debate, and each year 25- 30 out of 100 seniors get into Ivy/top 15. I’ve never heard of anyone publishing any research let alone develop an AI service used by real corporate clients

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP I see posts like OP’s on here so often but at our school (independent feeder school not in DVM or NYC), those kinds of ECs are almost unheard of. Kids play varsity sports, do things like write for the school paper, theater, debate, and each year 25- 30 out of 100 seniors get into Ivy/top 15. I’ve never heard of anyone publishing any research let alone develop an AI service used by real corporate clients

Same outcomes at our non-DMV private.

But kids do unusual sports outside of school (fencing; sailing; squash; equestrian) and that gets noticed esp if there are accolades.
PT Jobs/internships too.

Niche hobbies (woodworking; agricultural related; beekeeping; birdwatching; urban farming) are also growing more common.

But no businesses with corporate clients etc.

[Anonymous]

I agree with the advice to focus criteria first -
for my DC they wanted semester, rather than quarter system, wanted STEM but interdisciplinary so preferred schools with single college rather than separate schools within an umbrella (can be hard to take classes outside of your school at some), wanted smaller class size but not too small a school.

In terms of EC's it should be things that your student really likes and wants to do. For mine who is super social and active it was StuCo (elected all 4 years, ASB Pres as senior), proof based mathematics research, theater (lead roles in plays and musicals), debate at regional/national with awards)

My kid was accepted to several T20 and is class of '29 at an Ivy.

[Anonymous]

This year ECs probably have less weight in college application. Top stats top rigor kids will have a better time.

[Anonymous]

Most of the publications in academic journals (not all) are done through parents' connections or under parental supervision.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This year ECs probably have less weight in college application. Top stats top rigor kids will have a better time.

What made you think this?

[Anonymous]

Fly fishing and wrote a book (not about fly fishing).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This year ECs probably have less weight in college application. Top stats top rigor kids will have a better time.

Only by using holistic admissions will colleges be able to meet goals of a diverse class including enough full pay. They'll just have to ensure there isn't too much variability among races. So an argument could be made that EC's will play a bigger role in certain cases.

[Anonymous]

4 year Varsity Basketball. Captain Senior year. Varsity Track.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This year ECs probably have less weight in college application. Top stats top rigor kids will have a better time.

What made you think this?

Def not what we saw this year.
Sure at flagships (Texas; UNC; UVA; Michigan) but not at places like Duke, Northwestern, Penn, Dartmouth, Columbia, Princeton and Stanford.

Way more than stats at our private.