As second semester juniors, our focus has somewhat shifted toward colleges and the application process. Advisers, teachers, and guidance counselors are emphasizing the importance of grades and "extra-curricular activities". My guidance counselor has noted that extra-curricular activities are just as important as grades, and I have heard from numerous reliable sources that in order to get into some top schools you must actively participate and excel in a high school sport.
I found this news somewhat shocking. I think that, quite frankly, it is quite a rip-off that most people must be involved in a sport in order to get accepted into a top school. What about those kids who aren't interested in sports? I don't see how COLLEGE (the place whose main focus is teaching academic rigor and preparing students for graduate school) admissions should be based off of something that isn't really related to learning. Although sports may make campus life more fun and entertaining, they have nothing to do with academics, the major focus of college.
Recently, these extra-curricular activities have been deemed just as important as grades. Personally, I am involved in quite a few extra-curricular activities (none of which are sports), and I really enjoy them. But aside from my personal bias, I don't think it's fair to weight non-academics just as much as actual academics and SAT/ACT scores. Colleges say that they want students who have good "time management." And they're failing to consider the whole concept that people have other non extra-curricular activity-related commitments that force them to balance their time wisely. For instance, say someone is on the basketball team, and practice is each night for 1 hour. This hour has been taken away from the student's homework time, so he must manage the rest of the night wisely. Now, say that there's another student who drives and picks up his/her sibling to and from piano lessons. Let's say that the place where the sibling gets his/her lesson is 15 minutes away from the house. So, you drive the sibling there and then return home, using up 30 minutes. When the lesson ends, you pick up the sibling and come back home, which takes another 30 minutes. AT THE END OF THE DAY, YOU BOTH USED UP AN HOUR OF YOUR TIME, REGARDLESS OF THE REASON, AND MUST BALANCE THE REST OF THE EVENING WISELY. You see, it seems like colleges fail to take this into account. Now on the college resumes, the first student is going to say that he/she was on the basketball team. But the second one can't say, "I drove and picked up my brother/sister to and from piano lessons." That's not going to fly. It doesn't matter how the hour was spent; the point is that both of these students need to manage their time wisely.
What do you think?
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The point of having extracurriculars for colleges to see is to show that you take initiative in certain areas. It doesn't have to be a sport, though there are recruiting practices that get students into schools. Most college admissions boards will agree, however, that these students make more money, in game tickets and merch, than they cost. If you do actually take your sister to piano, mention that somewhere in your application, that you take care of your siblings, and that might help you. It doesn't show as much personal initiative as a social service group, but it does show maturity and time management.
ReplyDeleteI like what Sam said: extracurriculars shows that you can take initiative in something more than they show that you have good time management. I also think that extracurriculars show that people can find a balance between multiple things (ex: school, sports, social life, etc.). While it does show an amount of time management it also shows that a person will contribute something to their college rather than sit in their dorm and study by themselves the entire time. Watching my friends siblings go through the process, I heard over and over again that colleges want to know what you, as a student, can bring to the table. However, like Sam said I believe their is a way to incorperate almost anything into a college essay/application if you feel it really impacted who you are and what you have to offer.
ReplyDeleteI think you were a little misled when you learned that playing sports was a major component to acceptance to competetive universities. In rare cases, people can excel in a sport and become recruited, but this is not entirely common(although we see it a lot at NT).
ReplyDeleteLike you said, playing sports does take up time and forces people to conform to a new schedule. Sports are also a method in which students show interest outside of school. I think this is the concept that colleges are interested in: what do you do outside of school that can make you unique. I think that dribbling a ball up and down the court is one example, but unique social service projects are just as likely to impress schools.