Sports or Clubs? Which stands out more on college applications?
I'm a junior currently and I'm involved in many clubs and extracurriculars. I have lots of leadership roles as well and overall, I'm super involved in my school. I did wrestling my freshman year but over quarantine I fell out of it. I joined a local girls wrestling team this year to try and get back into it but thus far the girls wrestling team has been kind of lame. Not many girls are showing up and they haven't been having as many practices. I've been thinking about dropping it but I'm unsure because I feel that it will look good on my college application. Should I continue with it? or drop it and pursue other physical activities like I was thinking about doing a free yoga class at the YMCA instead. How much would this hurt me on college admissions?
However, I may be a bit biased because I love sports and continued to play throughout high school, even if traditional admissions advice would advise me to drop it because there have been many benefits for me (physical health, increased productivity, collaboration, social skills, team captain, passion for the sport, etc.) even though I was not able to take on jobs or internships because of the heavy time commitment
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Just to qualify, I am answering this question based on much research I have done on what to add to my extracurriculars as I have not yet applied. From my research if you have a strong club (nationally known like National Honor Society or Educators Rising) it is better than a sport where you have not excelled, gotten awards, etc. Also clubs are better if you've held leadership positions. Sports take a lot of time and unless you are going after a athletic scholarship they are not as important as they used to be. If you do not have a lot of other things to put on your ECs and have done the same sport over a course of years then I would put it. A really good resource is YouTube. Put "how I got into (your dream college)" in the search bar and you will get several students outlining their application process and they always go over what ECs worked and what did not. College Vine has a comprehensive list of every EC possible already put into the proper categories if you need ideas. You are already probably doing things that count and don't even know it. Good luck!
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I think that wrestling, since it is a niche sport for girls, may be worth the time investment though. If anything, you could possibly write about your struggles in the sport and how the other girls on your local team are unmotivated but you persisted in spite of that.