Grumpy Rumblings (of the formerly untenured)

Extracurriculars seem to have become even more important for elite colleges than they used to be.  (Maybe not more important for top 10 schools, who always cared, but there are a lot more elite schools than just the old Ivy League + Stanford + MIT).

Now that DC2 is going crazy with extracurriculars, I think I understand a little bit about why they’ve become so important for differentiation, especially in a world where the SAT is no longer required most places.  Grade inflation is at all time highs (which was also true when I was in high school, but now the highs are higher!), and not all high school classes require a depth of knowledge or ability to do challenging problems, and AI is making it easier to cheat without learning anything… but competitions where the talented and motivated can prove their skills and dedication are still impressive and don’t seem to have dumbed down at all.

The AMC is a math test for high school students to take.  When we were kids it was called the AHSME.  It consists of challenging math problems that require you to not only have a deep understanding of mathematics and numbers, but also to be able to put things from different sections of math together.  It’s not enough to remember tricks, but to use like 3 different tricks from different areas to solve a single problem.  And this includes things like mods which generally aren’t covered in high school math (but should be), and are only covered in elementary school if you’re lucky.  Not all of the problems require that much depth, but if you want to pass and qualify for the AIME, you need that depth.  Qualifying for the AIME means that yeah, you should be able to handle the number sense needed for a hard science or engineering (or econ at a school that teaches real econ to undergrads).

Some of the competitions for extracurriculars require being able to write a serious essay.  These essays aren’t graded by a single teacher who is comparing you to your classmates who can’t put a coherent paragraph together, but by a team of people who are reading a lot of competitive essays.  The questions require real research with real citations, not just thoughts or cites from a single source (e.g. the novel that they’re reading).  DC2 worked on one for weeks.  It’s the closest thing I’ve seen to real college essays in my kids’ combined K-12 experience, and possibly the only example of real technical writing.

Programming competitions and robotics both require a level of programming not required in class.  It’s not about passing an exam, but having something real actually work.  And the problems in competitions start getting tricky and requiring knowledge of how important edge cases are.  It’s not just that you’re good at doing the class stuff, but that you’re doing things that never show up in a standard high school class.

Leadership in an organization, if done well, requires communication and organization, and in DC2’s case currently, event planning.  I am very glad zie is only VP and not P for STEM club– but zie is learning so much being on the executive committee about organizing events and what needs to happen to make that happen.

Violin competitions certify a level of skill that As in orchestra don’t.  It’s not about just showing up.

I also think DC2 is learning a lot in these extracurriculars, not just demonstrating skill.  But DC1 learned a lot with hir hobbies, and DC2 is learning a lot of art techniques on hir own (zie is not interested in getting formal instruction for some reason).  And even video games teach some skills.  Still, colleges don’t know that unless you have some way to demonstrate it, and formal extracurriculars have that structure in place.

Sports, which DC2 is not doing, I think demonstrate time management skills more than anything else.  If you can keep your GPA up while also practicing however many days per week, it may not matter if you can show excellence.  Though showing excellence in sports does tend to lead to college scholarships for the relevant sports.  I’m not sure if the same applies to marching band, which is also a huge time sink.  Though DH did get a marching band scholarship for trombone, and it may have helped him get into his near-ivy undergrad.

Did you do extracurriculars in high school?  If applicable, are/did your kids doing/do any?