You don’t need to be busy to succeed in admissions

Jack Beecher here

For college admissions, choosing the right activities is far more important than time spent on activities.

I’m sure you all can imagine the "well-rounded" student at your high school. They volunteer on the weekends, play a couple sports, are a member of 5 different clubs, and lead another one in their spare time. This is the model of a perfect high school student.

Let me tell you something: that’s not the best way to do it. Sure, if you enjoy hopping around from practice to club meetings to your volunteer hours, do it. That’s awesome. I just know that’s not for me, and probably not for most of you either.

What this "model’ student gets wrong is they see time as a proxy for accomplishment. If only they can put more things into their day, optimize their schedule a little more, and sacrifice an hour of sleep for an hour of something else, they will be successful. This could not be further from the truth.

Often, time is not a great indication of success. At its best, time increases success linearly.

At work, another hour earns you $40 more. In sports, another hour of practice makes you slightly better. In college admissions, another hour of volunteering boosts your chances by .1%.

These are linear returns, which is fine but not great.

This is not to discount hard work. Time is necessary for success, but it is not its main driver. Instead, you must find areas of high leverage. Where more time spent increases your success exponentially.

Imagine these counter-examples:

For an entrepreneur, an hour spent figuring out a new way to produce doubles their company's output. For an athlete, an hour spent developing a perfect training plan triples their performance during their next season. For a smart college applicant, an hour spent thinking critically about their story and picking activities to support it doubles their admissions chances.

So yes, time is good, but it is often not a perfect indicator for success. This should come as a relief. You don’t need to be artificially busy to succeed in admissions.

This is why CHOOSING activities is far more important than SPENDING TIME on activities.

Here’s an example:

I’m a high schooler interested in majoring in history.

I could

a)
join the bowling team
participate in science olympiad
start the school’s volunteer club
volunteer more on weekends
play varsity football
go to math club meetings

or

b)
start my school’s cold war history club
read books about ancient rome and write a blog summarizing them

What looks more impressive? What better fits my story as a history major?

This is obviously an extremely contrived example, but the point stands. TIME DOES NOT EQUAL SUCCESS.

Rather, spend your time picking activities that will create success.

To caveat, I’m not saying don’t join the clubs you want to or have no activities unrelated to your story on your application. I just want to put this information out there so you don’t feel stressed that you’re not doing enough. If you don’t want to, don’t join clubs just to "show" college admissions officers you're active at your school.

Now, if you're a freshman or sophomore, ignore my advice. Think about this stuff for later on and begin on a couple core activities now, but join everything. Explore. You can always go to one meeting or one practice and quit.

I hope this idea resonates with you. It’s one of the best things I’ve realized in life. Instead of always feeling busy and stressed, I can relax while choosing a couple core things to give my all to.

Best of luck with college admissions,
Jack Beecher

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