ECs while banking?

CompBanker:

From the literature I've read, an applicant out of banking is not expected to have ECs while working. Instead, the school looks at the applicant's involvement DURING college to determine if (s)he was involved or not.

I agree. EC really does mean extra-curricular, not necessarily community service. So while it is important to show some connection to the community (a very broad term, including the campus community via clubs) and your world, you don't have to be volunteering all the time. The thing about college, is that you are supposed to have used your time to do lots of cool things in addition to going to school. That's college, right? (Exception: if you had a job because you had to pay for undergraduate - but even then, you should have done something to expand your world)

Further, when you are working long hours in IB, PE or consulting, you don't need to be Mother Theresa . You want to be well rounded, though. While you are working those crazy weeks, you want to do club sports or keep that garage band going, especially to keep your head on straight. To quote the head of HBS admissions -- you want to be interesting.

At b-school you will be going to class, networking, joining organizations, looking for work, doing sports, traveling to exotic places, doing field work, attending TED-like talks, starting companies, working on your interpersonal skills, and maybe sleeping a little. Sure, it's like camp, so you need to be able to show to adcoms that you can do a whole lot of productive things at once.

Make sense?