When talking about activities, many students ask admission officers to gauge to what extent their involvement will affect their application. The questions normally go something like "I did 642 community service hours last year. Will that help?" or "How much will Eagle Scout help?"
Wut?
Those questions are a bit hard for us to answer. Of course, we want students who are active and engaged in life outside the classroom, but we don't have a strong opinion about certain activities being better than others. There are
924 student organizations currently on the books here. They all make UVa an interested place. Will doing community service help? Sure. That's a great thing to do outside of the classroom, but there are many other activities that are great, too.
The questions about "how much" something will affect an application are hard to answer as well. I think students want to know that we definitely take the time to read all of those details they share in the activity section of the application. We read it all, but there isn't a rubric that we are filling in as we work through a file. You don't get points for involvement, so weight isn't being assigned.
Feel free to use the comment section to ask questions about how we use the activity section.
