Extracurricular Patterns Among Students Admitted to Highly Selective Universities: An Anonymized Coded Dataset

This anonymized dataset accompanies the research paper “Is There a ‘Perfect’ Extracurricular Formula? Patterns Among Students Admitted to Highly Selective Universities.” It contains coded information from 30 self-reported admitted-student profiles obtained from the EC Database. The dataset includes 258 reported extracurricular activities, 273 category assignments across 11 standardized categories, intended-major alignment, depth-versus-breadth classifications, recurring extracurricular category pairs, reported awards, and exploratory school-level comparisons. The sample was purposively selected according to the researcher’s universities and academic fields of interest. It is not representative of all applicants or admitted students. The information was self-reported, some profiles were incomplete, and the dataset does not include rejected or waitlisted applicants. Therefore, it should not be used to infer causation, predict admission, or represent the admissions preferences of any university.