One of the topics considered on the December 16 edition of NPR’s All Things Considered was “What It’s Like To Apply to College in the Pandemic.” The correspondent, Ryan Delaney of St. Louis Public Radio, reported on “the unique challenge of pandemic college applications.”
Those of us who work with seniors are all too familiar with those challenges. They begin, of course, with simply living through a health crisis that has upended life as we know it in a way not seen in more than a century, since the misnamed “Spanish Flu” of 1918.
Surviving the pandemic is hard enough physically, but it also takes a toll emotionally, and students may find that the adults in their lives are ill-equipped to be reassuring. In addition, the past year has revealed deep divisions and vulnerabilities in our national ability to deal with crisis. Do we have the will to endure sacrifice, or at least the ability to recognize and acknowledge threats to our continued leadership in the world?
For members of the Class of 2021 the uncertainties of the college admissions process in the midst of a pandemic are layered on top of those existential challenges. Almost all of our students had their school journeys upended beginning in March, and for many seniors school has been virtual for almost a year. The pandemic has particularly devastated the non-academic side of school life, obliterating sports seasons, concerts, and rites of passage such as proms and graduation ceremonies. Last spring my seniors complained that we had maintained classes and learning virtually but sucked all the fun out of the school experience.
Not only have transcripts been affected by virtual learning, but the pandemic has removed opportunities to take the SAT and ACT for huge numbers of students. That may not be a bad thing, because it has led the vast majority of colleges to consider their usage of testing and to adopt test-optional policies, with some institutions making a leap to test-blind admission. In addition, seniors have been unable to engage in the single most important part of researching colleges, the campus visit.
The All Things Considered story touched on the issues sufficiently, as NPR stories tend to do, but there was one statement in the report that made me raise an eyebrow (maybe even both). Reporter Ryan Delaney stated, “In normal times, extracurriculars can make up for academics.”
I question whether that statement is true. Colleges are certainly interested in a student’s commitments outside of the classroom, which is why applications ask for the information, but the idea that extracurricular activities “make up” for academics is false for all but a small group of students.
In my experience probably 98% of most college decisions are based on academic fit. If the currency of real estate is “location, location, location,” the currency of college admission is “transcript, transcript, transcript.” Strength of schedule and grades are by far the most important factors for admission. I happen to think that test scores and essays are overrated as admission factors in most cases. They serve to supplement the transcript and provide detail for the self-portrait being painted by the applicant, but I can think of very few students in my long career who may have been admitted or not admitted purely because of testing or because of an essay.
The same is true of activities. A student’s involvements outside the classroom may tell a story about what they value or how they spend time, but they don’t “make up” for academics except in rare cases. To be admitted because of activities in spite of academics you need to be a blue-chip athlete, a teenaged Nobel prizewinner, or the star of your own show on the Disney Channel.
Where might activities become a tip factor? Athletics play an oversized role in many admission processes. Every college with an intercollegiate athletics program, whether Ohio State or MIT, is looking for student-athletes who can be successful in the classroom and on the playing field. At many strong academic institutions in Division 3, student-athletes make up a third of the student body. Because coaches are so involved in recruiting and advocating for athletic recruits in selective admission processes, being a recruited athlete is the best hook to have. It is not by accident that Rick Singer took advantage of athletic recruiting as part of his “side door” admission plan. But if you are a dedicated three-sport high school athlete not playing in college, your athletic commitment will not “make up” for lower grades.
Activities may also play a larger role in admission processes where the vast majority of applicants have superb transcripts. All things being equal (which of course they never are), if both of us have comparable academic credentials but you play the oboe in a year where the college orchestra is desperate for an oboe player, you may very well be admitted instead of me. If I apply to the same college a year later as an oboe player with comparable or even better credentials, I may not get in because the college already has an oboe player.
In most cases, however, activities won’t make a difference, much less “make up” for academics. Every high school in the country has a student council president and a newspaper editor. If you are the best trumpet player in your school, that makes you 1 of 38,000 nationally. For an activity to possibly “make up” for academics, you need to earn distinction beyond your school, earning statewide or national recognition.
Students should pursue extracurriculars in things they care about, not because they are looking to impress admission offices. Quality is more important than quantity, and substance is more important that the illusion of substance. How many clubs are started each fall by seniors with a shelf life that lasts until college applications are submitted? I trust (and hope) that admission officers can distinguish between substance and packaging.
I am a devoted NPR listener (except during pledge drives), and I am better informed about lots of subjects as a result. As a college counselor, though, in this case I think spreading the idea that activities “make up” for academics is both inaccurate and a disservice.