Skip to main content
1
2 years ago
Admissions Advice
[edited]

How many extracurriculars should I take if I want to get into Yale?

I’m currently in show choir, gospel choir, marching band, I performed in my school’s musical, and I’m going to be doing theatre club this year. I want to pursue creating musicals and plays. What else can I do to boost my chances of getting in?

clubs
Decent-extracurriculars
Freshmenhighschoool
incomingsophomores
Yale
1
2
🎉 First post
Let’s welcome @Jelany to the community! Remember to be kind, helpful, and supportive in your responses.

Earn karma by helping others:

1 karma for each ⬆️ upvote on your answer, and 20 karma if your answer is marked accepted.

2 answers

1
2 years ago

The number doesn't matter, usually most colleges only allow you to add up to five extracurriculars. It's not the number, what matters is what you DID during your time in a club. If you want to boost chances via ECs, you need to do something impressive, e.g. be a president/founder of a service club at school at raised $100,000, being the presider/founder of a music club that won a national music/choir competition, etc. Or at least this is what you should be doing by the end of junior/early senior year to impress top colleges with ECs.

1
0
2 years ago

The question is never how many, but the quality/impact of your work within each activity. If you have 200 hours of community service, is it better to have 20 each for 10 clubs or 100 between 2 clubs? This is also why it's best to join extracurriculars with a growth mindset: unless you're just doing it for fun, you want to advance towards some sort of leadership position or achievement. If you're already a rising junior building your college list or a senior applying, it might be a little late to build your resume much unless you get these leadership roles or some sort of award/title soon.

Keep in mind that Yale is one of the most selective schools in this country, and unless you have done 1-2 activities with a lot of impact on your community or some equivalent achievement, with grades to match, your odds are very slim. If you/your family run the net price calculator for Yale, and you can afford the estimated cost you'll get, possibly with loans, I'd suggest EDing.

0
What are your chances of acceptance?
Your chance of acceptance
Duke University
Loading…
UCLA
Loading…
+ add school
Your chancing factors
Unweighted GPA: 3.7
1.0
4.0
SAT: 720 math
200
800
| 800 verbal
200
800

Extracurriculars

Low accuracy (4 of 18 factors)

Community Guidelines

To keep this community safe and supportive:

  1. Be kind and respectful!
  2. Keep posts relevant to college admissions and high school.
  3. Don’t ask “chance-me” questions. Use CollegeVine’s chancing instead!

How karma works