This might be of interest to those of you whose children are in middle or high school.
Cognito Mentoring spoke with admissions officers at Harvard, Yale, University of Chicago, Columbia, Stanford, MIT, Duke, University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth, Williams, Johns Hopkins, Swarthmore, Brown, Northwestern and Caltech, about how they evaluate student participation in extracurricular activities, for 15 colleges total.
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[*]Colleges generally don’t prefer some extracurricular activities over others: Seven of the colleges indicated that the nature of the extracurriculars doesn’t matter, as long as the student shows passion.
Thanks for relaying what the admissions officers told you, but I don't believe them. Do you think colleges care just as much about recruiting classical musicians as basketball and football players? Below is some evidence that they don't regard all extracurriculars equally. I also think that people should not be confident in their ability to judge "passion" from someone's (perhaps heavily assisted) college essays.
http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2010/07/how_diversity_punishes_asians.htmlJULY 12, 2010
How Diversity Punishes Asians, Poor Whites and Lots of Others
by Russell K. Nieli
...
Besides the bias against lower-class whites, the private colleges in the Espenshade/Radford study seem to display what might be called an urban/Blue State bias against rural and Red State occupations and values. This is most clearly shown in a little remarked statistic in the study's treatment of the admissions advantage of participation in various high school extra-curricular activities. In the competitive private schools surveyed participation in many types of extra-curricular activities -- including community service activities, performing arts activities, and "cultural diversity" activities -- conferred a substantial improvement in an applicant's chances of admission. The admissions advantage was usually greatest for those who held leadership positions or who received awards or honors associated with their activities. No surprise here -- every student applying to competitive colleges knows about the importance of extracurriculars.
But what Espenshade and Radford found in regard to what they call "career-oriented activities" was truly shocking even to this hardened veteran of the campus ideological and cultural wars. Participation in such Red State activities as high school ROTC, 4-H clubs, or the Future Farmers of America was found to reduce very substantially a student's chances of gaining admission to the competitive private colleges in the NSCE database on an all-other-things-considered basis. The admissions disadvantage was greatest for those in leadership positions in these activities or those winning honors and awards. "Being an officer or winning awards" for such career-oriented activities as junior ROTC, 4-H, or Future Farmers of America, say Espenshade and Radford, "has a significantly negative association with admission outcomes at highly selective institutions." Excelling in these activities "is associated with 60 or 65 percent lower odds of admission."
