[Edit: The post below gives the impression that our conversations with admissions officers are our only reasons for believing the claims. We've also consulted with other sources such as How to Be a High School Superstar: A Revolutionary Plan to Get into College by Standing Out (Without Burning Out) which corroborate the admissions officers' remarks]
We 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. Some things that we found based on college's statements are below.
Kawoomba suggests that colleges' statements on the first point below can't be taken at face value. What do you think?
- 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. Two of the colleges indicated that they have a preference for students who are involved in at least some activities with other people. Beyond this, no colleges indicated a preference for some extracurricular activities over others. In general, the colleges indicated that they define "extracurricular activities" very broadly, as anything outside of coursework, which could include work, sports, participation in online communities, etc.
- Colleges generally prefer depth of involvement over breadth: Six of the colleges indicated that they have no preference for whether students engage in lots of activities or a few activities, as long as they show serious involvement in their activities. Seven of the colleges said that depth matters more than breadth. None expressed a preference for many activities.
- Commitment can be important: Six of the colleges indicated that continuity of involvement and commitment matters. None said that these things don't matter.
- Achievement level can make a difference, but appears to be less important: Five of the colleges indicated that achievement level doesn't matter as much as depth of involvement. Two of the colleges indicated that higher achievement helps.
This seems to be the kind of question for which the answers shouldn't be taken at face value. Imagine they'd given concrete preferences for certain extracurriculars -- the potential trouble that could get them into. Anything from outcries of "discrimination!" (as soon as there are social or racial discrepancies in activity participation, "They did not recommend religious clubs, damn liberals!" / "They mentioned clubs supporting minorities, which may contradict affirmative action regulation 27-B!") to putting young people in the difficult position of choosing between what they'd actually like to do and what best furthers their chances of admission.
No, regardless of their actual preferences (or lack thereof), from a public relations and legal standpoint it's obvious they had to answer this way, and as such only weak evidence in and of itself.
(I'd be very surprised if there wasn't some systematic ordering over extracurriculars in the actual admissions data.)
I agree, but even if it did not cause them trouble, they might reasonably decide to keep the details of their selection criteria vague -- so people are less likely to game the system. Imagine what would happen if they announced that they really like lacrosse and field hockey players.
And that's even assuming they are consciously aware that they favor some extracurriculars over others.