Avoid activities that won't impress admissions officers
The highly selective colleges need you, the applicant, to demonstrate to them that you possess the qualities these colleges value. These qualities are best demonstrated through activities that you engage in in high school. Colleges want to see that you embody initiative, drive, leadership, passion and/or a willingness to stretch out of your comfort zone.
There are certain categories of activities that do not demonstrate who you are, or that you embody the qualities colleges value. These type of activities are passive in nature, and will never make you stand out no matter how expensive they were for you to participate in them.
Attend an Expensive Summer Program
In lieu of doing something active that requires initiative, parents and students alike decide that an expensive summer program organized by an elite college is the best way to spend their summer months during high school. While these programs can be very enriching, they will not help you stand out in a college application because participating in a paid, structured program reveals very little about who you are.
The same holds true for summer programs offered by institutions like the American Ballet Theater or auction houses like Christies and Sothebys.
If you must attend one of these programs because you find the content intriguing and enriching, make sure you are engaging in other activities that will make you stand out in your college application.
Read How to stand out with school activities
Spend 100 Hours on Community Service
When you participate in an existing community service program as a volunteer, you are not demonstrating the values the highly selective colleges want to see in an applicant. These community service programs are structured with specific tasks assigned to their volunteers, and your participation in them does not tell the colleges much about who you are other than you have empathy for the less fortunate in society.
Even participation in building programs run by Habitat for Humanity in a poor country say very little about your qualities. These are structured programs that you sign up for, and your participation will be supervised by others while your trip will likely be paid for by your parents.
Participate in a Structured Activity like Playing Piano or Violin or Learning Ballet
Thousands and thousands of kids learn to play the piano or the violin and pass the Grade 8 exams for these instruments. It is not possible for you to stand out under these circumstances, and these activities will not demonstrate much about who you are to the highly selective colleges. The decision to learn to play these instruments was likely taken by mom and dad when you were aged 5, so your input was minimal in the decision to pursue the activity. Learning an instrument will certainly enrich you culturally which is a very worthwhile goal for your overall education, but it will not make you stand out.
Unless your are an exceptionally talented pianist or violinist who wins awards and gives public performances, these activities will not make you stand out.
However, a student who did take piano and violin lessons, but branched out to the saxophone and formed a jazz band that performed publicly did stand out. He gained admission to an Ivy League college.
Taking ballet lessons fall in the same category as taking piano and violin lessons, there are thousands of kids who take ballet lessons. The decision to take these lessons were made by mom and dad when you were about 5 with minimum input from you. So unless you are exceptionally talented and get invited to join the American Ballet Theater at age 16, you cannot stand out.
Read Independent Activities that Help You Stand Out
Get Busy by Joining Too Many School Clubs
Colleges do not give out participation trophies even if you did have a lot of fun as a member of a wide range of school clubs. Participation in the activities of a school club say very little about you as a person, and do not inform the highly selective college about what qualities you possess.
Being a member of many clubs can keep a high school student very busy and active, but it will not help you stand out in your college application.
Many a parent has lamented about why their child was rejected by a top college despite having a high school calendar chockful of activities. The highly selective colleges want a “superstar” in one thing, they do not want a well rounded applicant. They want a unique applicant who contributes to making up a well rounded class.
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