Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion What colleges look for in extracurriculars

In my second year as an assistant professor at Stanford University, I was assigned the task of mentoring six freshmen. Each appeared on paper to have an incredible range of interests for an eighteen-year-old: chess club, debate club, history club, running team, volunteering with homeless shelters. I soon discovered that these supposed interests were just an artifact of the U.S. college admission process, adopted to flesh out the application forms and discarded as soon as they have worked their magic.