Misdirected extracurricular race does no one any favors

When Club Day took place in late September, students attended for two primary reasons: first, the free food; second, the unending search for application-boosting extracurricular activities. For their first meeting, many clubs — such as speech and debate, science club and math club — were flooded with new members hoping for something to strengthen their resume.

Mock trial is a good example of this trend. Last year, multiple students quit after they didn’t make the varsity team, saying that it was pointless since a JV position wouldn’t impress colleges. This year, several understudies who made the cut have nonetheless failed to show up to practices, which suggests that they, like last year’s quitters, have decided non-varsity participation is not worth their time.

Once simply done for fun, extracurriculars have now become a rat race competition. Students compete to get involved with what they perceive as application-boosting activities and obsess over whether certain activities will help or hurt their chances of being accepted into their dream college.

Yet opinions differ on what colleges actually want. Should students take more extracurriculars or focus on being outstanding in the few activities they do choose? Or, alternatively, should they focus on pursuits directly related to their planned major or future career?

This suggested answer was posted on College Confidential’s online forum for college applicants: “It doesn't matter what extracurricular you choose to do as long as you get regional or national recognition for it.”

At first sight, it seems to be a reasonable statement. After all, anyone can join a non-cut sports team. Isn’t it more noteworthy if you participate at the regional or national level?

Looking deeper, though, this truism doesn’t seem quite right.

First, there is the inequality of effort. Some are born with innate ability; others work hard and improve until they are on par with their more naturally talented peers.

Take, for example, the case of sophomore cross country runner Alice Bian. At the beginning of middle school, Bian had a 9:42 mile time. By the end of her freshman year, she was running a 6:07 mile.

Bian is by no means the fastest on the team, but she practices hard and continues to improve. Eventually, Bian will likely surpass talented but lazier runners who make little or no personal progress. Therefore, the effort and commitment put into improving should have more significance, not just for her but also for admissions officers.
Second, not all extracurriculars come with honors or opportunities for special recognition. Many clubs, for example, are simply shared interest groups. These often get a bad reputation, since some students start them to boost applications and don’t put much effort into maintaining the actual club. These students are simply wasting their time; these sham clubs produce neither useful skills nor fond memories.

On the other hand, sincere “for fun” clubs do still have value. Students can still learn valuable life lessons and gain amazing memories from a year in Culinary Club or Amazing Movie Club. The things teenagers take away from even ordinary experiences can be more profound and long-lasting than whatever little they retain from an extracurricular they have no interest in.

In addition, a participant’s plans for the future should also matter. Many students choose activities with little or no connection to their interests or career plans. A future art history major, for instance, will have little practical need for robotics skills. It’s possible that the student has a personal interest in the activity — in which case, of course they should participate — but students should not choose activities solely for the sake of college applications.

Think about how you want to remember your high school years, when they become “back then.” Do you really want them to have consisted of awful extracurriculars you suffered through to boost your applications? Surely not — most people would rather have happy memories of fun times they had, of activities they enjoyed whether or not they helped them write a better college essay.