We're talking high school, not elementary school. College admissions don't look at elementary school activities.
High schoolers can walk around unattended. Even a quarter mile, both ways. It's not a big deal. In the summer I often try to get in 5 miles a day of running/walking.
> incredible luxury
Don't overstate your case.
The irony in this thread is all the complaining about "can't do things that will look good on a college application" just means that another student who does find a way around obstacles is going to be the one admitted. Surmounting obstacles makes one a standout candidate.
You seem to have had a pretty privileged upbringing. I did too. School bus was always available during normal hours, and my mom was a stay-at-home mom, and was (nearly) always available to drive my sister and me places.
My schools were never within walking distance, and my parents wouldn't have been comfortable with the type of roads I'd have to traverse even if they were, even when I was in high school.
Your assumption that everyone -- or even most kids -- have a situation like you had is just flat-out wrong.
> Surmounting obstacles makes one a standout candidate.
This is just hogwash; being in a position to surmount obstacles is privilege too. And you seem to be ignoring the fact that some kids didn't have obstacles, and so it was easier for them to participate in all these other activities: they started out with a built-in advantage. Even if you do have obstacles, and are able to overcome them, you're still going to have a harder time than the kids without the obstacles. And not in ways that are obvious to admissions departments such that your experience would give you a leg up.
> in a position to surmount obstacles is privilege
I presume you live in America. That makes you just as privileged. Consider all the millions with nothing that are desperate to get into America. They see something you're missing?
> you're still going to have a harder time than the kids without the obstacles
Well, yes. Overcoming obstacles makes for a more compelling candidate.
> And not in ways that are obvious to admissions departments such that your experience would give you a leg up.
The opportunity to bring how you surmounted obstacles to the attention of the admissions people is through your application.
> High schoolers can walk around unattended. Even a quarter mile, both ways. It's not a big deal. In the summer I often try to get in 5 miles a day of running/walking.
Extremely location dependent. Where I live today, in Virginia very close to DC, I commute by bike and do lots of biking/walking for fun and to run errands. What you are saying about walking around as a means of getting from place to place is just completely untrue in many parts of the United States.
I made a specific point about my ES/MS because of how egregious it was to have them at a half mile's walk away but with unacceptably dangerous terrain, in the very place I grew up. My HS was a couple miles away and, until ~2010 when they built a protected ~800ft long MUP, would have required walking/riding on the highway to reach without a car as well.
The point of that is that if you live in an area like this and your parents work, you are extremely handicapped in what you can do by yourself. You would need a third car to get yourself around and if you cannot manage that then you are completely subservient to your parents' availability and your local school bus schedules for all of your transportation needs. Which has repercussions on clubs, extracurriculars, your social life, really the full range of experiences you can have growing up.
When I was in K-12 my life consisted mainly of school, sleep, and playing video games in the basement. Now that I am in a city and can go wherever I want whenever I want I find I am extremely active and social and have many different hobbies.
I'm sure there are places where it is difficult to walk anywhere. Those are not the norm, however. I don't recall any places like that in Seattle.
Most parents with kids try to pick places to live that are reasonably kid friendly. Real estate people know that, and advertisements emphasize things like walkability and distance to schools.
Seattle is definitely out of the norm. Even Northgate, which doesn't have sidewalks in places, has roundabouts on the collectors to discourage speeding. I grew up in a poverty-level suburb and you were walking miles away on cramped sidewalks even to get to a grocery store. When I grew up cars couldn't accelerate that quickly so it wasn't that scary, but these days cars can travel at > 60 mph on collector roads between lights.
This is just not a take that squares with how it is to live anywhere in America outside of the denser urban cores and some shallow radius of the suburbs around them. Perhaps it was correct at some time in the past before the suburban expansion of the post-WWII era. Perhaps Seattle is different from the overwhelming majority of the United States and is uniquely walkable or upzoned. I would not know since I have not been there before.
In the United States today it is the norm for middle and upper middle class parents to raise their children in car-dependent suburbia. Particularly in the last half century, most new residential developments have been exactly this. The defining features of these places are sprawling circuitous developments of detached single-family homes, massive parking lots, impassable highways, and strip malls.
If you'd like an example, please come visit Loudoun and Fairfax counties. I grew up in that area. They are some of the wealthiest counties in the country, a common destination for families in the DMV, and you will see how much walkability and proximity to schools that money has bought them.
High schoolers can walk around unattended. Even a quarter mile, both ways. It's not a big deal. In the summer I often try to get in 5 miles a day of running/walking.
> incredible luxury
Don't overstate your case.
The irony in this thread is all the complaining about "can't do things that will look good on a college application" just means that another student who does find a way around obstacles is going to be the one admitted. Surmounting obstacles makes one a standout candidate.