Does participating in extracurricular activities help you get into university?

Does participating in extracurricular activities help you get into university?

Phil Avery (Geography Teacher) gives expert video advice on: How do students benefit from doing extracurricular activities?; Does participating in extracurricular activities help you get into university?; Should students' interests outside school be valued? and more...

I think extracurricular activities can help you get into university. I think increasingly, with many more students getting high grades, maybe not top grades, but high grades, standing out is more difficult to do through a UCAS application form. Certainly if you show yourself and you're a well-rounded person, who partakes not only sports, but also in things like art, drama, maybe volunteering in the local community through the Duke of Edinburgh scheme. Maybe taking up new interests could be a way of standing out as well, if you've never had a chance to ride a horse and you take up the equestrian club at Oxted School, then you're showing skills that don't come across, maybe, from your academic record. And also, back when I applied at University, one of the three interviews I had at one of the universities that I applied to, was solely on extracurricular activities. It could well be that you get questioned if you go to interviews, and increasingly interviews are becoming part of the university application process.