[cperciva]

Indeed. Out of six years of reading scholarship applications, the most impressive extracurricular activity I've read about was working at McDonalds -- because it was clear that they had been given nothing in life for free, and had spent years working every available hour trying to put together money to cover the cost of their education.

That demonstrates commitment in a way that volunteering for worthy causes never will.

[debatem1]

I'm super glad to hear someone in higher education say this. Is it a common opinion in admissions circles these days?

(By the by, I'm a huge fan of your work. It inspired me to get into compression several years ago and it's been a passion project ever since.)

[cperciva]

The notion of "take students' background into account when evaluating their extracurricular experience" is very widespread. There are some students whose applications discuss volunteering in far-flung parts of the world, and that gets boiled down to "ok, so this kid comes from a rich family..." and doesn't tend to yield positive results.

But the precise details of how this happens varies from person to person on the adjudication committee at my university, and I'd assume other institutions are similar. Some people opt for demographic indicators (e.g. "this is an indigenous student, and indigenous students tend to have less access to extracurricular activities"); I don't like that approach since I insist on evaluating individuals as individuals rather than as members of collectives. On the other hand, I'm probably unique in how much I look for a narrative and self-awareness; to me, what a student has done is less important than their ability to articulate why they did it (and so "working at McDonalds" by itself didn't count for much, but "working at McDonalds because ... [story about why higher education is important to the student and why they're willing to make sacrifices for it]" was crucial).

[pzh]

I know this is off topic, but I find it really interesting to hear that you put a lot of weight or rely entirely on the narrative, which I assume would mostly boil down to the application essay (unless you also interview candidates in person). I've always thought that a significant number of Ivy League applicants hire admissions consultants and marketing experts to hone their "message" and to help them leverage their background and extracurriculars to build a likeable persona that would result in an acceptance outcome, and I believe the essay would be the primary vehicle to achieve that. Do you have a reliable way to detect when a student is really articulate and when a marketing expert has been hired to write or significantly direct the essay?