How important are extracurricular activities, sports, hobbies etc for UCAS application?

[BlueSkyHawk]

We're Brits, currently living in the US, but my DD wants to return to the UK for uni. Here in the US, there's a really big focus on what you do outside of school, especially sport, for your college (uni) application. It seems more important than your grades!
My DD is very academic but not at all sporty and I'm trying to reassure her that in the UK, universities are focused on your predicted grades and less interested in extracurricular stuff. But is that still the case? Obviously it's been 25+ years since I did my UCAS application! What kind of extracurricular stuff do you think UK universities expect/are interested in?

Asking your referee to describe your unusual circumstances is a far cry from playing the pity card. We want to assess applicants on a level playing field.

Of course if they are able also to volunteer that is fabulous

Duke of Edinburgh doesn't seem to make a difference these days, maybe Gold might a tiny bit, which seems a bit unfair considering how much time and effort is required for it.

And money.

comments from a referee are a completely different thing.

if you choose not to do voluntary work, then you choose not to do voluntary work - fine. If you tell other people, and worse, tell yourself that you are "too disadvantaged" to do voluntary work, you have a problem.

And if you are telling kids they are "too disadvantaged" to expect anything of, then your are heaping problem onto problem

I am spending the weekend in the local young offenders institute, training volunteers among the inmates. Some of these will go on to apply for university eventually.

Super-curricular (academic stuff that goes beyond the curriculum or shows a genuine interest in what they are applying for) is much more important than co/extra curricular.
Super-curricular could include:
Further reading
Podcasts
Lectures/Webinars/Talks
Work experience/Volunteering
Academic competitions
MOOCS

If they do want to include co/extra curricular, link it to the skills required for the course. I.e my volunteering for DofE improved my communication skills which supports my application for Occupational Therapy because communication is an essential skill etc etc

Personal statements are being abolished from 2025. universitycompare.com/advice/ucas/ucas-personal-statement-changes

Thank goodness! but there will still be spaces on your application form to fill in your extras that you have done to show commitment to your subject.

At my DD's sixth form, they told them only to mention it if they had got gold and even then just briefly.

@sheoaouhra "if you choose not to do voluntary work, then you choose not to do voluntary work - fine. If you tell other people, and worse, tell yourself that you are "too disadvantaged" to do voluntary work, you have a problem"

Oh, don't be so silly.

I am not being silly - the poster trying to claim the ability to do voluntary work is a privilege is being silly.

You appear to be on a mission and you’ve had at least one stellar result. That’s great. But it is quite arrogant to suppose one knows the reason why others do not engage in voluntary work.

I am simply interested selecting the strongest students for my School. I also don’t think we should derail the OP’s thread further. If you wish to pursue this, why not formulate an AIBU on the question to get a spectrum of opinions?

@sheoaouhra I think what they mean is, sometimes you are so poor you cannot afford to work 'voluntarily'. To work for nothing, someone must be funding you to do so.

Only insofar that it demonstrates interest in their degree subject. So volunteering at a school for autistic kids if going in to education for example. Essay competitions for English. The PS is changing now so not sure what it will look like. The school reference might be the place to add some extracurricular info. But really they don't care about stuff outside the subject, like they don't care that a student was a junior Olympic whatever, though it does demonstrate dedication and discipline (so in old PS might take up a line or two, but no more).

For my course, which is very competitive, we do use the PS as one of the ways of deciding between the thousands of applicants with very high A Level grades, the majority of whom we must reject.

It will become relatively less important from the next admissions cycle, as ahead of the changes to the format of the PS along with various other concerns we have had for a while mean that we have decided to add an additional exam requirement to our admissions process, but the information from the (new) PS will still be one of the things we use. Whether we make more changes to the admissions process is still up in the air until we can properly assess what we will get through the reformed PS (and we are unlikely to be alone in this amongst similar courses).

Our advice on the PS is this: No activity has any more or any less inherent value than any other. In and of itself, when it comes to the PS, volunteering has no more value than watching a youtube video, work experience has no more value than winning an essay competition. Any and all activities only gain value through the way the applicant uses them to demonstrate how they have taken an initial interest in our subject and used whatever the activity is to develop and deepen their understanding - what you have learnt from the activity is the important thing, not the activity itself. This kind of self-directed learning from an initial starting point is what we will expect people to do if they come to study with us.

We have a PS written quite a long time ago that we use to this day (particularly in our widening participation work because the activities are free and require no one else to facilitate or support them and it demonstrates our point about there being no prestige activities that we favour). The specific activities the applicant refers to in the PS are: playing a computer game, reading and watching things on youtube, all of which they are able to relate to the academic subject they want to study (plus some minor leadership role in their school and enjoying basketball, neither of which we care about). It is one of the best personal statements we have ever seen.

If anyone is reading this and worrying about their own or their DC's applications for health related courses please include any people facing work. It doesn't have to be a care setting or a hospital.

I once interviewed a student who said, "I work in B&Q on the customer service desk. There can be many challenges over a weekend."

Another student said she didn't really have relevant work experience. I said, "I see you work at the bar in the football stadium. Tell me about the skills you use there?"
"Oh yes," she said. "It's surprising how angry people get if they think they've missed their turn. I have to stay calm. Stay polite but assertive. Say I'm coming to them next and apologise for any delay."

This post is so important that it deserves to be highlighted

Your input on these threads is always appreciated @poetryandwine even though I don't have any skin in the game right now.

@poetryandwine

These statements don't have much to do with academic ability. Staying calm? Lots of DC could demonstrate this. Lots of challenges? No mention of solutions. I cannot believe these statements are that important overall. Is it because football is associated with being working class? Many rich DC work by the way. They actually enjoy it.

I've seen where the PS is used as a tie breaker. Also when someone says a PS wasn't read- how can they possibly know? Their DC might have got an offer as a result of a tie break?

I would mostly write about suitability for course. Lots of unis say what they want to see in a PS. If they don't, just look up the best ones that do.

Thanks everyone. Your replies are very reassuring!
The culture where we are in the US is so different. I know parents that want their children to be in less challenging sets in school so that they have more time for their sport because it looks good on their college application. I think it's because sport is such a prominent part of university life here and also if they're really good, they can get a scholarship based on their sport.
I didn't know that changes are being made to the UCAS personal statement so I'll look into that, thanks!

@TizerorFizz I tried to be clear that I was talking about health related courses. I could have written more about all sorts of aspects including working independently and knowing when to ask for help/supervision. Of course the B&Q worker said more about skills and solutions.

The point I was trying to make is that ordinary work experience in a real job gives people skills and confidence that I know they can use on the ward.

That's nothing to do with being working class or otherwise or football. That was just a real life example of where a young person hadn't fully understood that they already had some transferable skills.

I also see the value of volunteering like the example of a young leader at Brownies given above. One of my DC did this and learned loads about working with others as well as things like supporting looked after children, safeguarding etc.

Working at Brownies for 2 years or working at the football stadium shows reliability over time in a way that a week's volunteering in Sri Lanka as part of a volunteer abroad/holiday scheme may not.

The important part of my post was that real work experience develops real skills and that applies to everyone regardless of class.

I agree it does but don't see it being hugely relevant for many degrees. For a job afterwards, yes, of course, so what dc do whilst at school should be tailored to the degree. My DD1 did MFL. The unis she applied to almost certainly would not care about whether she worked or not. When she starters her career, the cv she had built up did matter.

Great posts as always from @poetryandwine and also from @Phphion

Whether or not the PS is looked at or read is not the question. I think most of us agree it is worth a student drafting a good PS - BUT the key thing is to focus on their chosen subject and how their research, activity, whatever it is relates to that.

So I guess it might be sport if you were applying for sport science - but crucially it's key to show how it has developed your interest and understanding of what is covered in the degree.

There is no need (and it won't help as I understand it) to add in at the end how you did DofE gold, play clarinet to grade 8 and do athletics for the county without showing how it relates to your degree.

Btw the poster who warned against applying to Loughborough if not sporty is wide of the mark. Yes Lboro is a uni that encourages sporting participation; but it is not the case that you need to be sporty to get a place there to study engineering, or English, or science. I know of plenty of DC who went there and played in bands, acted in plays, but never went near the sports field.

I think this was specifically about applications for HCP jobs, @TizerorFizz

I think a teenager who can stay calm whilst managing drunk adults is in fact showing a relevant skill for the sector

I agree with you that some places do use the PS more heavily. I would love to feel that it was an equitable tool for such a purpose. A great PS clearly written by the applicant is a pleasure to read

It is rather that sad we need to choose between showcasing the ‘applicant voice’ (quotation marks sadly necesssary) and an equitable application process

Also when someone says a PS wasn't read- how can they possibly know?

We did a campus tour at DD's university (not an open day). We were very fortunate that the admissions tutor for her course happened to be free and gave us an hour of his time, and he told us that they only read the personal statements of borderline students.

Akso, at subject talks at other universities some admissions tutors said that they didn't read personal statements. All they were interested in was the right A level, or equivalent, grades.

This seems really misguided. Aside from very vocational courses where you want to demonstrate understanding of what's involved, all of this is irrelevant/just demonstrating privilege (how many kids have access to archaeological digs?!)/or would have me concerned that they don't understand what the course is about (animal shelter volunteering for biology).

(Russell Group admissions tutor of many years).