Extracurricular activities for uni application

[Puzzledmum]

Hi, could you share what extracurricular activities did your DC in order to earn "brownie points" for their uni applications?
My DD has been doing music to a high level (since the age is 3) and is planning to do some volunteering next year.
I know they need to do something which will show they have leadership skills too and am trying to help her decide on what to do about it. But what else? What have your DC have on their CVs which helped them to secure a place at a good uni?

DS's PS writing was a year ago now and so time may have drawn a rosy coloured veil over the whole process. However, as I recall, if you strip out the time spent worrying about it , actually writing the PS isn't an overly onerous process, so it seems to me a pragmatic and low risk strategy to research and write it as well as possible, in case it's a course or university who do read it. So I'm with Goodbye and Needmore in that "stuff all" effort wouldn't be my approach, although I do take Haybott's point that for some courses it may turn out to have been some wasted effort. All of course said in the relaxed way of someone whose DC hasn't actually got to write one this year

DS4 wrote his pretty much straight out for the school deadline in July and passed it by me and the couple of siblings who were around at that stage but there really wasn't much comment to make, not because of any particular brilliance on his part but because it was straightforward, unpretentious and none of the three of us had a clue about the science stuff which took up the bulk of it. We looked at it together again yesterday and it took about 45 minutes to get it to 4000 characters. I think he's putting it in today unless queues at school to sign the form off with the Ho6 are too long. My view is that it's best to get the form off and then you can't keep re-visiting it.

That's not to say he didn't try with the ps because he clearly did, it just didn't take too long.

goodbyestranger it was for psychology and was a comment made by the senior admissions tutor in a talk at the open day.

Hoppity, I doubt you can extrapolate this to all courses at Bristol or to psycology courses at other Universities. I would hate for someone's child to miss a place on a good course because they assumed someone else's experience would provide a template for their own.

I have just looked up UCL's psycology degree. They have 10 applicants a place and say:

"Your application will be assessed on the basis of your personal statement and your referee's report as well as on your past and predicted academic performance. Our Admissions Selectors are trying to assess qualities such as your academic potential, your motivation for studying your chosen degree, as well as core skills that are required for the programme."

So back to looking carefully at each University's website and following guidance.

When DD applied to Bristol psychology this was a couple of years ago. The PS was scored. AS, GCSE's and subject choices/combinations were weighted on points to give a overall total. It's a really oversubscribed course, don't know if they still do that now though. DD friend at uni who applied to UCL psychology and was rejected, her feedback stated the reason for rejection was that her PS wasn't as strong compared to the other applicants rather than the academics. So I guess certain uni's and courses will take PS a lot more seriously than others. But I think a lot of universities courses requiring AAB and below use computer automated system to sift the majority of application as long as they have the right predicted grades and satisfy general requirements they get a offer pretty fast in some cases.

\ / DS4 ?? - I went though University application once with one DC and it was enough - I salute you