Are Your Child’s Extracurriculars Enough for Their Top College Choice?

In today’s hyper-competitive college admissions landscape, the question isn’t just whether your child is doing enough—it’s whether they’re doing the right things.

While it may seem like loading up on extracurriculars is the key to standing out, top colleges no longer want a "jack-of-all-trades" student. In fact, the well-rounded applicant is quickly losing its appeal.

Here’s the hard truth: a student who dabbles in everything without a clear focus is seen as unfocused. They lack the uniqueness that admissions officers are now looking for.

We will explain this new reality and give you a strategy to help you assess your child’s extracurricular profile.

In this post..

• Harvard's Turning the Tide 2022 Report

• Your First Step: Reassessing Commitments

• Finding Your Child's "Why"

  • So are your child's extracurriculars enough?

  • How we help the process

Harvard’s Turning The Tide 2022 Report

Harvard’s Graduate School of Education released a report discussing important changes to the admissions processes. With increasingly competitive admissions rates and applicants, there has been a “deeply concerning problem” where students “purely perceive colleges as simply valuing their experiences, not their responsibility towards others and their communities.”

The report advocates for admission processes to increasingly encourage young students to continue working towards the common good as opposed to focusing on pure achievements. It discusses different pieces of advice for parents who are guiding their children during this time. This includes:

• Prioritizing the quality of activities over the quantity

• Advising that students focus on a few significant and sustained extracurriculars rather than filling their applications with numerous, less meaningful activities

• Pursing advanced courses like AP and IB classes in a balanced manner that fosters genuine academic growth rather than overwhelming them.

(The full report is linked here.)

Continued discussion around reports like these indicate that…

…students who demonstrate genuine, focused impact will stand out.

The biggest mistake we see families make is to focus on “what” their child needs to do as opposed to their “why.”

Your first step should be to reassess your child’s current commitments to determine which of their involvements have the most depth.

Your child’s “why” are the reasons why they’re engaging in their extracurriculars and where they want to go. Their “why” comes from previous experiences that have made a big impact on them. This “why” will develop into a story that shows how their passions have developed, how they’ve made an impact, and how their experiences tie together to create a compelling narrative.

How do I figure out my child’s “why?”

Try this exercise.

Together, you should look at all the commitments your child is currently involved in and list out memorable experiences from each that really stood out to them. An example of a list could look like this:

If you repeat this exercise across different commitments, your child may have more memorable experiences in some versus others. This is a good indicator of depth - the more your child is able to talk about a commitment, the more substance there is to form a direction for an Impact Project.

You should end up with 1-2 core commitments that have the most memorable experiences.

So are your child’s extracurriculars enough for their top college?

Here’s a general checklist.

We’re here to help the process.

We’re Porte. We provide 1-on-1 mentorship to help students launch projects meaningful for themselves and their college portfolio. 

You can read more about our Impact Accelerator here - a year-long virtual program where your child receives 1-on-1 mentorship with a mentor from a Top 20 college with project experience.