Activities don't have to align with a possible major
Almost all of the students at UVA arrive undeclared (exceptions are those studying nursing or kinesiology). Even those who have ideas about what they want to study often change their minds once they get here and start taking classes. After all, you haven't even had access to the variety of disciplines colleges offer when you're in high school. Activities should be interesting and rewarding to you. Explore your possible academic interests through activities if you want to, but it isn't a requirement, and it never has been.
The orchestra will assemble at larger schools
Back in the olden days (the 1990s) when I was disappointed by one of my college decisions, a family member giving me a spiel about how someone's daughter got into a certain really selective college because they played the French horn. It did not make me feel better. It made the admission process feel totally capricious. Looking back, I now know that person would have had to have an all-around awesome application to get into that school. They didn't get picked because of the French horn. Oh my gosh, was that horrible "pep talk" part of my origin story? Maybe. Anyway...
With 18,000 students at UVA and 4,000 new students joining us every year, we don't need to manufacture variety when it comes to the interests and talents present here. There will be dancers. There will be robotics kids and theater kids and kids building a sneaker flipping drop-shipping TikTok clipping side hustle. Nobody on our staff is sitting there thinking "we're short on debaters this cycle." Whatever you're involved in, there's room for it.
That also means we don't rank activities against each other. UVA has 978 student organizations on the books, and whether you're the president of a huge club at your school or in solo pursuit of something delightfully niche, we're glad you found something that mattered to you.
You don't need a spike and the class will be well-rounded
If you're consuming college admission content on Instagram, reddit, or TikTok, you've probably run into the idea of the "spike." This is the theory that your activities (sometimes your whole application) should be packaged around an intended major. This isn't a new concept, it's just gotten a new name. When I was applying to college, this was called being a "specialist" (sometimes referred to as "pointy.") and it was the only other option if you weren't well-rounded.
This is where the size of our school and each class comes into play again. Admission officers know that a class of 4,000 will be well-rounded due to its size. We don't have a checklist for the kinds of activities every student should have on their activity list nor do we expect your activities to broadcast a future major. While there are certain activities that attract certain kinds of students (*waves at the FIRST and OOTM participants*), there is no requirement for this. They don't have to relate to each other, and they definitely don't have to relate to your academic interests. Activities should be things you find interesting, rewarding, or just plain fun.
By the way, we do care about well-roundedness in your academic foundation. High school is the time to build a nice foundation across many disciplines. College is where you get to specialize...after some more foundation work.
A few more things worth knowing
- You don't have to fill the whole activity chart. Filling out all ten spaces isn't the norm.
- You don't need to show years of unbroken commitment. It's natural for activities to change as you grow and develop! In addition, if taking on more rigorous courses in junior and senior year required a shift in time commitments, that's a completely reasonable trade-off. You'll probably have to do that in college, too.
- Descriptions don't need to be masterpieces. You don't have to explain what DECA is, just give detail about your personal involvement.
The activity section helps us get a sense of how you spend your time and energy outside the classroom. It's not there so we can check boxes, fill quotas, or match you to a major. Spend your high school years on the things that actually interest you, and the rest tends to take care of itself.
What questions do you still have about how activities factor into the UVA review process?
