Extra-curricular Activities that Strengthen a College Application (Part II)

Recap: Profile of a student admitted to Ivy-league colleges

I ended Part 1 of what boosts a college application with 3 characteristics that stood out for a highly successful applicant, J: His dedication to piano studies and interest in biology were given "official” endorsement in the form of a competition win and published paper. He also has a “rounded” profile, in that he has “soft” skills like music and writing/editorial work besides excellent research work in a “hard” science subject.

Now, I had also stated that what this student achieved is almost like a “gold standard.” What if you’re not someone that excellent? Well, the good news is, there are many others who are admitted to top colleges without necessarily attaining to that level in extra-curricular activities.* I shall share some other “more attainable” but equally impressive examples, and simultaneously bring up contrasting examples of activities that would not really help a college application much.

(*Note that academic excellence is an established baseline, and of course, there are other factors such as the essays and recommendation letters.)

1) Evidence of long-term dedication/interest in one or just a few specific areas

How many hours of practice does it take for a pianist to be able to go on stage, and win some award? I don’t have to elaborate on this.

Some parents/students, overcome with eagerness to have some highlights on their activity list to show admissions, arranged for some seemingly impressive stints like a 2-week volunteer trip to an orphanage in Botswana (yes, I’ve seen a brochure from a consulting company that promoted that) or a week-long observation stint to a hospital in China (because the student’s mom knows someone’s cousin who has a connection there).

When a student comes to me presenting such activities with pride, I simply ask “What for?” Such random extravagant activities will surely draw raised brows, if not a push of your application to the “no” pile. I’d say someone who started as a girl scout in elementary school and continued to shine as an active girl scout through her heavy high school workload is a more credible candidate than someone who out of nowhere went to disrupt some lives in a remote orphanage. But, if a student has been involved in social justice for orphans for many years already, and he/she actually has some business to be in that orphanage in Botswana, go ahead.

Remember, therefore, that randomness only confuses and hurts any college application, and less is sometimes more.

2) Recognition that counts

J’s dedication to piano studies and interest in biology were given "official” endorsement in the form of a competition win and published paper.

When brainstorming with my students about what to write for their personal statement, I sometimes involve the parents if the students simply have nothing in their lives that they can write about. I meet parents who really hope to have my endorsement for their kids to write about how their projects were featured in some local town newsletter, or that their school principal honored them at the school assembly for a special project.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not the naysayer that puts everything down, and I am all for celebrating little bits of wins and lots of pats on the shoulders. But, honestly, for admissions to be impressed, the endorsement should be as high-level an “authority” as possible. It does not have to be a big project. An former student took part in a social cause proposal competition and won a prize money of $10,000 from the Maclellan Foundation. With that win, he could write his whole personal statement on that extra-curricular activity.

Recognition does not necessarily have to be outside of school. If you can get into teams that represent the school at state or national levels, and better still, get placed in the top spots, that is quite valuable. Those types of participation is evidently of a more legitimate level than simply being featured in one of the editions of, say, “Springfield Crier” or “City-Z Weekly.”

3) An all-rounded application profile

Over the years, I have found that students with good application outcomes have activities that show contrasting aspects of their interests or personality. J’s extra-curricular accomplishments showcased his musical (softer) side as well as his strength in STEM areas. He ultimately went on to major in molecular biology.

Another student who is strong in mostly STEM-related areas has an Etsy shop for her artworks. It also helps that she’s a female who wants to major in a predominantly male engineering field, and engineering schools want a better gender balance for their programs.

So, yes, a varied repertoire is good, but not too varied. Enjoy a few different areas of extra-curricular engagements, but not too many that you can’t achieve anything to show for.

What extra-curricular activities don’t help a college application?

I now want to go on to share my take on some activities that does not necessarily help an application, and some may even backfire and hurt one’s college application. Given the current trends, I’ll focus on one category of activities: Those where you have to spend lots of money.

Paid “activities” often do not lend much weight to a college application

I know what you did last summer

Every year, right around winter through the beginning of spring, summer program promoters start advertising their summer camps. Many top-tier colleges offer pre-collegiate programs that are competitive in their selection, and those are often the most pricey and most coveted.

There was a year when I was a counselor working for a consulting business that a parent was distraught because the son did not get a place in a pre-collegiate summer program at a well-known university consistently ranked in the top 10 in US News Report.

That same spring, another parent was irate that her daughter was not offered admission to the undergraduate class although she had attended the summer pre-collegiate program of that college the previous summer.

I understand that parents fork out (large) sums of money hiring counselors to help their kids with competitive summer programs. And, true, some of these programs are very competitive. But, really, while those programs help students acquire more in-depth knowledge in certain subjects than what they can get out of their high school curriculum, and it could be loads of fun especially for those in-residence ones, there is really no correlation between being accepted for those summer programs and the actual incoming freshmen class acceptance.

Also, there are good programs, and there are better ones. Before you take out your check-book or key in your credit card number on the registration site, do your research. I’ll cite one example here. There’s a summer camp company in my area that runs a coding camp on the campus of a prestigious university in my area. Many parents in surrounding schools districts sign up for that camp thinking there’s some advantage, somehow, to be gleaned that might up their kids’ chances of being admitted to that university. Unfortunately, the truth is, this summer camp company merely rented parts of the campus for their programs. That’s it.

Getting published: a new trend

There is a trend that I have seen in some college consulting businesses to offer “research” opportunities. I actually have students who have come to me with “research experience” with “professors” or “researchers” affiliated with universities, even renowned, top-tier universities. When I probed deeper into what these research opportunities were about, I can’t help myself but think “lol” in my head. One student told me her parents paid someone (who was doing a post-doc at some renowned university) thousands of dollars to have her name on a paper. I probed deeper when her parents insisted that she should write about it in her application essays. It turns out it was just a poster at a conference.

Another case was a student who got his name as a co-author on a paper about “nanocrystalline metals” and “mechanical attrition.” I’m sorry, say that again? Would admissions staff believe that a 10th grader was actually involved in some lab-based research with a lab that was 1500 miles away, and researching about nanocrystalline what? The saddest part was that it was not even a reputable journal. The parent had hired the consulting company because they claimed they have a “connection” for their son (again, a post-doc friend of someone in the company) to co-author a paper in a “famous” journal.

There are differences between a conference poster, a publication in some “famous” journal, and actual publication in a peer-reviewed journal. Academic journals are not rated by “fame” and that already should have given them away!

I recently attended a webinar by a college admissions consulting company. They listed, and I took a screenshot, a bunch of people who are “professors” or researchers at top universities and research institutes. I randomly picked a few of them to verify the authenticity of the claims and voila, here’s what I found: One of them simply did not exist, not via google nor any search engine, and not on the website of the research institute. He does not show up even with Google’s image search. Who knows, perhaps the picture on the webinar slide was generated by “thispersondoesnotexist.com” (if you haven’t heard of this website, try it, it’s fun).

Another one is actually an adjunct professor (so, not involved in research). One is an admin person in charge of undergraduate studies of a branch of the sciences. Another one is a teaching faculty without a research lab. Of course, there could be others who are legitimately able to provide research opportunities. I don’t care to find out more, since I’m not the parent who will be paying for such “research” connections.

What I do know is that when students ask me to refer them to friends who are faculty members at universities and running research labs, I tell them they have to approach the faculty themselves and prove their worth and interest. I am not selling “connections” or making some money out of that, as have been asked before, when I was working for a college admissions consulting company.

Most importantly, researchers or professors who are worth their weight in gold would never stoop so low as to associate themselves with private companies selling “research opportunity” packages to parents. Parents, sincerely, you need to be more discerning!

So, if a high-schooler is truly interested in research, what should he/she do? There are specific research programs. Or, just approach the professors. I had 3 students who cold-called/emailed tens of professors whose research they were interested in, got summer internships, and went on to be co-authors. One of them is already in a medical school after graduating from a top university in the mid-west, another graduated from a highly-coveted Ivy and one other is currently in a top BS/MD program. Prove yourself, is what I’d advise, not have your parents pay for the connection!

Self-praise is no praise

I have also seen cases of students desperate to publish that they simply get themselves published on self-publishing platforms. My advice to such desperados is that it’d be more attractive for admission considerations to come up with something really special and impressive and garner a huge following on YouTube, Instagram, Podcasts, Tik Tok etc. But, if your self-published book caught the attention of Hollywood and you got millions of dollars for the screen-adaptation of your story, you have a real game-changer there.

Final take: Follow your heart for your extra-curricular activities

What I have written here are just case-specific examples that I have personally encountered. Not every student who comes to me aspire to the Ivy-league colleges. Most students do not have even the baseline qualities, such as a GPA of 3.8 and higher, to even stand a chance. My take is, follow your heart, enjoy your activities without any contrived efforts to pick only activities that are “supposed” to be good for college admissions. If you persist, you will shine, and that can be seen, even if you’re just someone that’s always on the bench when your baseball team-mates are fielded. Your dedication will be appreciated, if you can showcase them well in your college application!

Good luck!