Extracurriculars and Athletics

If you are a varsity athlete in high school and are planning on playing college sports, you already know the answer to this question. Any demanding activity requiring 20 or more hours per week of your time will take away from academics. This doesn’t mean your academics will suffer; it means you have to work harder, stay organized, and sacrifice sleep or other activities in order to get it all done. To encourage this, most college athletic teams have daily or weekly study hall times. Yes, you may struggle to keep up during competition season, especially if your sport involves a lot of travel and missed classes, but it can be done.

Employers will look at your resume. Does your resume include leadership positions in clubs and organizations either on campus or in your community? It should! Employers aren’t looking for a specific number of activities. Instead they want to see skills, talents, and habits that indicate your potential as an employee. You can acquire and heighten these skills through extracurricular activities. A word of warning – your potential employers may not think you position as captain of the campus beer-pong team shows leadership as much as it shows potential negatives. Use good judgment when including leisure based extracurriculars.

They can if you let them. Be conscientious about striking the right balance between sports and school. It can be tough to juggle long after school practices with the homework and study load that comes with rigorous classes. Unless you are planning to attend college on an athletic scholarship and are being actively recruited by college coaches, always make academics your top priority. College care far more about your grades than your success on the field or in the pool.

In some cases, certain skills will be a prerequisite for participating in a specific extracurricular activity - for instance, playing with an orchestra or band. This is also true of varsity teams for which students must try out and be accepted. Sororities and fraternities usually have procedures through which members must be accepted, and there may be other examples along this line, depending on the school. Most extracurricular activities, however, are open to anyone who is interested. Find out what is offered at the schools you are considering. The extracurricular activities with which you become involved will do much to increase your enjoyment of your college experience. Many schools offer students the opportunity to create new extracurricular organizations if something in which they are interested does not already exist on campus. In order to start a new organization, a student is usually required to present a petition with a certain number of signatures of other interested students. This required number is typically quite low.

There is no reason that involvement with athletics should take away from a student's academics. In fact, having the social and physical outlet of athletic involvement may actually lead the student to even more academic success. The secret is to establish the proper balance between the time spent on athletic training and competition and the time needed to attend and effectively prepare for classes. Establishing this balance is not necessarily easy, but it is worthwhile for a student to focus on his/her personal time management in order to enjoy all of his/her college commitments to the fullest.

Some institutions have decided to include references to extracurricular involvement on student transcripts. This is not universally done, however. A student would more likely include these references, when relevant, on his/her job resume/CV. How much interest a potential employer would have in a student's extracurricular activities would undoubtedly hinge upon how the student's involvement in that activity would impact the student's success in the prospective work environment. Some examples: - A student applying for a job in some field of the arts, who has participated in that area while in college - drama group, orchestra, dance club, etc. - A student applying for a job in a scientific or mathematical area, who has been involved with a campus scientific or mathematical society - A student applying for a job in journalism, who has worked on various campus publications - The list could go on in this vein. A potential employer might also look with interest at a student who has consistently taken on leadership roles in the organizations in which he/she has been involved. The leadership skills which have been developed could be of great value in possible job assignments. Leadership skills may have been demonstrated in any area - sports, drama, music, dance, mathematics, science, student government, etc. The activities to which a student chooses to commit his/her time while in college reveal much about the student as a total person and consequently may be of considerable interest to employers.

Varsity sports are those in which players are involved in representing their schools in competition with other colleges/universities at the highest levels. There are three major NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) varsity sports divisions - Division I being the highest level, with a breakdown for football into Division I-A and Division I-AA; Division II; and Division III. Division I and Division II sports programs typically offer scholarships in various amounts, while Division III programs usually do not. Depending on the institution, recruiting for specific varsity sports may be very intensive. Some schools do accept "walk-ons" for certain varsity sports, however. A student interested in playing a varsity sport should contact the coaches of the relevant sport to determine what procedures are in place at each institution to which he is considering applying. Students who participate in varsity sports, especially those receiving scholarships, will be under a certain amount of pressure to commit the necessary effort to sports training while maintaining satisfactory grade averages. Club teams are those which, in principle, any student can join based on his/her athletic abilities/interests. Weekly practices are usually held, sometimes more than once per week, and competitions are arranged with other institutions, but because the student's involvement is recreational in nature, there is less pressure with regard to meeting training and academic demands. It is up to the student to establish the proper balance between his/her sports commitment and his/her academic life. Involvement in various college/university activities can provide the social connections which students need in order to feel at home and integrated into the college experience. For many students, club sports will provide this niche.

Probably debate, sports, and any long running rivalry with another school.

Employers may look at extracurriculars simply because it demonstrates that you weren't all work and no play. Your participation in activity XYZ may prompt a fun conversation during the interview because of some connection for the interviewer. Some firms may sponsor rec leagues and be happy to know you'd be a contributing member to the team. Employers like knowing that you may have a passion beyond your field of study, that makes you more "human" and usually more personable.

That will vary from school to school and activity to activity. Some extracurriculars simply can't accommodate large numbers. Other programs know that not everyone will be available at all times, so maintain a larger roster.