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Written By Joanne Morvay Weant

Sports practice, orchestra and band rehearsal, club meetings, Karate class, Scouts, volunteering, 4-H and religious youth groups: with all the extracurricular activities children are involved in today, it is amazing that they have time for school.

Parents tend to think that their offspring must be “well-rounded” if they want to get into the college of their choice. And so kids of elementary school age are run from this practice to that game, from this community service project to that meeting. And at the end of their very long days, when many children are up at dawn and still have a project to finish before they can sleep, parents may wonder if all these activities really matter.

Yes, they do. But…

Kelly Hamilton, guidance counselor at Liberty High School in Sykesville, says grades, advanced courses and SAT scores still get top billing when a student applies for college.

Activities are next on the list, however. And with the increase in online applications, a decline in face-to-face college interviews and the fact that good grades alone no longer guarantee college acceptance, the way in which applicants spend their spare time definitely matters.

“It gives the student an opportunity for the school to see them as a person and not just a statistic,” said Hamilton.

Specifically, admissions officers look for innovation and leadership.

“Did they create a club or event that didn’t exist before? Were they a leader of a club? Did they referee for a middle school soccer team and what did they learn from that experience?

“Colleges want to see the student’s personality come through,” said Hamilton, “and they want to know, ÔWhat is this student going to contribute to our collegiate community?’ ”

Brittany Lethbridge, a Union Bridge resident who is entering her sophomore year at Hood College in Frederick, agrees. A member of the graduating class of 2009 at Francis Scott Key High School, Lethbridge played basketball and volleyball during her senior year, was co-leader of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, president of the National Honor Society, editor of the school yearbook and a peer facilitator. At the same time she was also active in 4-H, Younglife (a national Christian youth ministry) as well as her church youth group and the Special Olympics.

Actually, Lethbridge pared down her activities from a number of things she was involved in when she started high school, including serving as captain of the basketball and volleyball teams, taking piano lessons, playing on a “travel” basketball team, participating in dairy judging and showing dairy cattle.

She followed in the footsteps of her older sister, Allyson, who held many of the same leadership positions in high school. Both girls also took multiple advanced placement courses, earned high grade-point averages and logged more than 500 community service hours.

The sisters were accepted at multiple colleges without ever going on a single interview. Each also won so much scholarship funding that their freshman year (they are both at Hood) basically cost their family nothing.

“My activities made the school or the scholarship committee or whoever else reviewed my application realize that not only did I focus on my studies, but I was very busy with other activities,” said Brittany. “I think they want good grades. But it helped for them to see how much other stuff I had to offer.”

The girls’ parents, Steve and Donna Lethbridge, say that they encouraged their daughters, as well as their son, Collins, a senior in the fall at Key, to participate in activities.

“But they had to be the ones to pick and choose,” said Donna Lethbridge. “There were some things they became less interested in as time went on. Many times it was a time management issue, too.”

When sports and 4-H schedules conflicted, the sisters, raised on a dairy farm, focused their attention on sports.

Guidance counselor Hamilton says that the key is helping teens find activities in which they feel comfortable. Their goal should not be to build a “college resume,” but to find the place where their talents are best developed.

“It’s fine to dabble in a lot of different things and find your niche in your freshman and sophomore years,” said Hamilton. “But by the time you’re an upperclassmen, colleges want to see a student being less of a generalist. Being superficially involved doesn’t play as well as if you had a significant role in one or two groups.”

Hamilton says students and their parents should not be afraid to think outside the box.

“If you have a garage band or you started a coffee club where people come and recite poetry, that’s great,” she said. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be school-related.” And teens who work – by necessity or choice – should not despair. “If you can show leadership on the job, I would say that would help, too.”

It is important to show in an application how all of the experiences affected personal growth.

The website for the University of Maryland at College Park lists choices for application essay questions as well as “short answer” statements, which are required to be completed in 20 words or less. Sentences like “I felt like a mentor when IÉ”, “One time I led aÉ” and “The one thing I never expected to gain from doing community serviceÉ” offer applicants the opportunity to highlight their skills and experiences.

The Lethbridge sisters say they also wrote a “personal profile” that listed their activities as well as their level of involvement in those activities, as well as any awards and honors they received. Donna Lethbridge advises starting the profile as soon as a child begins high school in order to record all of a student’s activities.

Bearing in mind the importance of extracurricular activities, the college preparatory website, careersandcolleges.com, stresses two things. First, never expect extracurricular activities to make up for low grades or an easy course schedule. They will not.

And no matter what, do not lie about extracurricular involvement on a college application. Officials do check.