Can clubs get you into college? Unpacking the school’s culture around extracurriculars

Naomi Yaeger Staff Writer

“More often than not, the college piece factors into students’ interest in starting clubs,” Dean of Students Michael Dalo said. “We have many propositions for clubs that overlap in ways with other clubs that already exist, and I think that that does stem from an idea that students think that they need to be the person who starts a group.”

As the school year comes to a close, students compete for leadership positions in clubs and publications and brainstorm the creation of new organizations as well. The stress that surrounds this process stems from perceptions of the relationship between college acceptances and participating in school organizations.

While academics serve as the most important part of college applications, extracurriculars are a close second, providing admissions officers with a unique view into students’ lives, Executive Director of College Counseling Canh Oxelson said. “It’s almost like an admissions officer would like to follow you around for one day or one week to see what you’re interested in, what you talk about, and how you spend your time.”

Though admissions officers use students’ extracurriculars to track their growth and predict their college trajectory, the subjectiveness of the college process makes it impossible to determine how much a particular activity matters in an admission decision, Oxelson said. “What we don’t want is for students to think of clubs and organizations in a transactional manner — as in, ‘if I do this club or organization for this many years, or for this many hours a week, it will be viewed a particular way in college admissions.’”

The importance and ambiguity of extracurriculars can make it difficult for students to decide how much time they should dedicate to a club position or activity. In a Record poll sent after the Clubs Fair with 177 respondents, 33% said they signed up for at least one club because they “thought it would look good for college.” In the same poll, however, 91% of respondents said they joined out of genuine interest, illustrating the balance that students strive to achieve between competition and genuine passion.

While William Bramwell (12) was genuinely interested in most of the clubs he joined, such as the Economics Club, the Classics Society, and BusinessMann, he joined Parliamentary Debate, which he was less excited about, to include it on his resu- me, he said. “I do enjoy debating and talking about issues with people,” Bramwell said. “But I don’t think I actually loved the club — it was more just something I did.”

College applications did not play a role in the clubs Giselle Paulson (12) initially joined. She chose ones that aligned with her interests and her mom’s recommendations, like Public Forum Debate (PF), which she is now a president of. “I thought it would be too preppy and I wouldn’t like it, but then I ended up really loving it — and it wasn’t preppy.”

Oftentimes, students use extracurriculars as a mechanism for creating a narrative for their college applications. Paulson became much more aware of this pressure in her junior year, she said “When I was choosing summer internships after junior year, I knew that debate was my main activity, so I wanted to do something more law-oriented,” Paulson said. “I still found that internship interesting, but the thought process, for the first time, did involve how cohesive my application would be when I applied to college.”

Zain Lakhaney (11) joined the FRC Robotics team and co-founded the Horace Mann for Islamic Awareness Club to pursue his passions and make his interests clear to colleges, he said. Lakhaney thought that starting a club would demonstrate his ability to take on responsibility to the colleges he will eventually apply to.

Every year, students develop new clubs, Dalo said. Occasionally, when students are spread too thin, these clubs can become inactive, he said. Other times, students start clubs based on less-developed ideas. “A club can’t revolve around one activity or one initiative because once that thing is done, it’s like, ‘Okay, now what does this club do?’”

According to the Upper Division (UD) Student Life Webpage, new clubs are initially placed under a probationary status. Within two months of their approval, clubs must host three meetings with at least seven attendees to gain full approval. This year, Dalo implemented a new policy requiring that clubs re-register at the start of each year to ensure that clubs are active. He estimates that 75-80% of clubs are active in a given year, with around 10 of approximately 80 clubs being denied for renewal at the start of this year.

Despite not intending to be a pre-med student, Ruimin Zhang (11) founded the Students in Medicine club two years ago. Zhang saw a lack of medicine-related clubs and wanted to create a community for pre-med students, he said. “I sometimes have a lot of work and it gets really hard to make club meetings, but I still lead them because I feel like I have a responsibility,” he said. “These people, they signed up for the expo sure, and it’s unfair to them if I just stop the meetings.”

Gabe Jaffe (11) founded the Investors Club after noticing a gap in the school’s club offerings, as it allowed him to pursue his passion for different economic mar kets, he said. “I didn’t think there was a club at school where kids could learn ab out investing in stocks and different kinds of markets, like bonds and real estate and crypto,” he said. The club is low-commit ment, but meets enough times to discuss every economic sector that they focus on at least once.

While some students believe that “le gacy clubs” will boost their chances in college applications more than other clubs, colleges do not view one organization as more important than another, Oxelson said. Legacy clubs are large, often higher commit ment clubs that have been at the school for a long period of time, such as PF, Model UN (MUN), and The Record. Instead, colleges look for the impact that students had, both within that club and on the school community at large, Oxelson said. While this impact can correlate to club size, it does not have to.

Joining “legacy clubs” can come with a negative connotation, Jiyon Chatterjee (12) said. When Chatterjee joined the PF team in ninth grade, many of his peers discouraged him, saying that it would be harder to stand out for leadership on the large team.

Leadership opportunities can oftentimes create a tension between focusing on clubs that a student loves versus the ones they think will impress college admissions officers, Avi Rao (12) said. “I’ve done [Mock Trial and Robotics] throughout all four years of high school and really loved them, so I feel like I want to make them better as a leader,” he said. “Did I think, ‘Oh yeah, that would also be great for college,’ especially in junior year? Sure.”

Similarly, while Bramwell pursued leadership in clubs that he was passionate about, the pressure to obtain leadership for his college applications was always present, he said. “I’d like to say I applied mostly for a genuine interest in the subject, but I won’t lie, the resume and college application building certainly plays a huge part as well,” he said. “It might even be close to 50-50 for me.”

Claire Tsai (9) views club leadership as a way to demonstrate commitment to that club, she said. Tsai applied to be a Middle Division mentor on PF, which she views as her main interest, in order to share her love of PF with younger students and show the club leaders that she cares about the club, she said.

Similarly to club membership, the titles that students hold are less important than the actual significance they had in that given activity, Oxelson said. “While I understand why you might imagine someone who’s president, or vice-president, or founder as having a greater impact than someone who‘s the treasurer or the secretary, that isn’t always the case,” he said.

Students can also show impact outside structured activities. “For example, a kid who is taking care of a younger sibling doesn’t have a leadership title, but they have impact,” Oxelson said. For this reason, the Common Application has the option to include any activity that students allocated time to in whether it be a part-time job, a hobby, a familial obligation, or more. “It is an accounting of your time outside the classroom, no matter what it is or make sure that we are writing about them in our recommendations.” These recommendation letters can also highlight impacts that a student had on their school community, such as becoming the first female president of a club that is generally maledominated, Oxelson said.

When choosing new PF leaders, Paulson said commitment to the club was the most important factor. “You don‘t have to be winning every tournament, but if you’re consistently showing up, you’re practicing, you’re prepping, and you’re doing the most you can do, we value that the most,” she said. “It’s hard to do that if you‘re not genuinely interested in the club.”

By picking committed leaders for the next year, current leaders can prevent the club from dying out, Bramwell said. “It’s extremely easy, as a senior, to just care about the college application process and your grades, and just let the club die,” he said. “Unfortunately at HM, I’ve seen a lot of that.”

Some people join the MUN team solely to list it on their college application, but the high level of commitment required to advance in the club means that these people are few and far between, MUN Secretary-General Nitika Subramanian (12) said. “Most people grow to love the team more than just a way to get into college.”

Encouragement from his parents has made Kevin Cheng (9) more aware of the relationship between clubs and college applications, he said. “My parents have been motivating me to find my passion,” Cheng said. “Like generally, ‘Hey, you need to start paying attention to college,’ so that’s just something in the back of my mind.”

Colleges can typically tell when students over state how much a particular activity mattered to them, Oxelson said. “It’s difficult to fake genuine interest and impact,” he said. To verify a student’s claim, admissions officers will compare their essays to the letters of recommendation written about them.

“All clubs do things that you wouldn’t usually see high schoolers do — whether that be publishing a paper every week or hosting a huge conference — and those are the types of things that Horace Mann should invest in, because that’s what makes Horace Mann unique,” Subramanian said.