Why are extracurriculars so hard to join in college now?

[Anonymous]

College is no longer a time to explore sadly. Many engineering clubs at top schools have applications and interviews you have to pass to make it into the club. Greek life is selective as always. Club sports are even more selective than varsity sports teams at large high schools. It’s insane

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:College is no longer a time to explore sadly. Many engineering clubs at top schools have applications and interviews you have to pass to make it into the club. Greek life is selective as always. Club sports are even more selective than varsity sports teams at large high schools. It’s insane

What colleges are you talking about? Can you cite any examples?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:College is no longer a time to explore sadly. Many engineering clubs at top schools have applications and interviews you have to pass to make it into the club. Greek life is selective as always. Club sports are even more selective than varsity sports teams at large high schools. It’s insane

What colleges are you talking about? Can you cite any examples?

Virginia Tech. All the engineering clubs there reject like 95% of the students that apply

[Anonymous]

Because we have turned college into high school part 2. If you don’t push and have an amazing resume then you’ll never get a good job (insert panic here). So more people apply to these clubs and they just don’t have enough spots for everyone.

[Anonymous]

One of my kid went to a school that gets mentioned in the news for club exclusivity quite a bit. Kids - and parents -get upset about it. My kid ( like everyone) got rejected from many things she applied to. But these are all student run orgs they simply can’t accommodate everyone who wants to participate. Think about when you went to college - was everyone filling their days and weekends with ECs? Definitely not at mine. The bright side - kids end up trying new things ( eg don’t get spot on debate team but end up trying moot court) and even more importantly there are loads of examples of students starting new groups/clubs when they didn’t get into the thing they wanted. It all works out.

[Anonymous]

It’s really sad. I’ve heard it’s intense and competitive for clubs even at the private level - ivys, Georgetown, Boston College, etc.

I think it’s a huge reason to opt for a smaller school where there are more opportunities to participate and not as much exclusivity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s really sad. I’ve heard it’s intense and competitive for clubs even at the private level - ivys, Georgetown, Boston College, etc.

I think it’s a huge reason to opt for a smaller school where there are more opportunities to participate and not as much exclusivity.

+ 1 - SLACs are the way to go

[Anonymous]

Artificial scarcity to inflate the perceived value of the EC

[Anonymous]

This sounds insane to me. Do employers actually care about clubs? Can't the students locked out of a student club just start their own club?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s really sad. I’ve heard it’s intense and competitive for clubs even at the private level - ivys, Georgetown, Boston College, etc.

I think it’s a huge reason to opt for a smaller school where there are more opportunities to participate and not as much exclusivity.

How do you know this to be true? I assume the Williams investment club is just as exclusive as anywhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because we have turned college into high school part 2. If you don’t push and have an amazing resume then you’ll never get a good job (insert panic here). So more people apply to these clubs and they just don’t have enough spots for everyone.

No, "we" haven't done that. The mindset of the last 60 years that every single person must have a college education, even if from a low rent, no-name school with a meaningless degree, has done that.

[Anonymous]

It is insane-my daughter applied twice and was rejected to a business fraternity-it was a week long process each time and she made it to final cuts both times-it was very stressful and really hurt her confidence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is insane-my daughter applied twice and was rejected to a business fraternity-it was a week long process each time and she made it to final cuts both times-it was very stressful and really hurt her confidence.

Sounds like she should start a second club. If there's that much demand, it should be no problem to get a second organization running.

[Anonymous]

Most clubs are open to anyone. It's just that people make a ton of noise when they encounter the ones that have a tryout/application/etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most clubs are open to anyone. It's just that people make a ton of noise when they encounter the ones that have a tryout/application/etc.

Not true for Greek life and club sports