How important are extracurricular activities?

I'm in year 11, and I'm wondering, how important they are for getting a placement in a university?

I want to study aerospace engineering.

I'm in year 11, and I'm wondering, how important they are for getting a placement in a university?

I want to study aerospace engineering.

For when you apply for placements and internships or applying for degree courses?

If you really mean "extracurricular" activities, like DoE, part time jobs, music grades, sports etc, it really makes no difference at all. If you mean "supercurricular" activities, like reading books related to your subject, doing on online courses etc, it can make a difference for "normal" unis, and is crucial for the uber competitive ones like Oxbridge, Imperial, LSE, St Andrews, UCL, Edinburgh etc. Some of those don't do aerospace engineering, but it will be the same for the most competitive ones that do.

I'm in year 11, and I'm wondering, how important they are for getting a placement in a university?

I want to study aerospace engineering.

For engineering not really. Most important thing is strong background in suitable academic subjects, i.e. doing well in maths & physics at A-level (and hopefully GCSE as well), additionally doing further maths is very useful and or chemistry/compsci are complimentary.

great, thanks
I'm doing maths, further maths, physics and computing at A-level
do you think i could put playing kerbal space program as a connected activity?

Solid subjects.

I have no idea what " kerbal space program " is, however it sounds like a video game. I dont think a video game would be seen as relevant, I cant imagine it is representative of what managing a space program is in reality and may risk you looking like you are trivialising or appearing to misunderstand what actually is involved.

it is used by nasa for simulations, and is very accurate

No, Kerbal is a suitable subject for your personal statement when applying to aerospace engineering.

I can't tell, is this a yes or no?

edited a typo and added further information

it is used by nasa for simulations, and is very accurate

I'm in year 11, and I'm wondering, how important they are for getting a placement in a university?

I want to study aerospace engineering.

Hey, I'm currently an offer holder for aerospace engineering and I think supercurriculars are really important if you're going for some of the top unis. There are so many really good applicants so it can help you to stand out and really show your interests. I've done a few and was asked about them in interviews, for example. The other extracurriculars probably aren't as important, but again it can help show you are well rounded if you do a couple of things. Obviously I don't know exactly what admissions offices are looking for, but having gone through the process for this course its what I would guess.

can you please give me some examples of some good activities?

@artful_lounger
do you have any suggestions of what would be relevant extracurricular activities?

There's really so many different things. You can read books or attend/ listen to lectures or if you have any clubs or societies or anything related at your school?

Wider reading is the biggest one. There are science fairs and so on you can engage with (e.g. the Big Bang Fair), stuff like hackathons and robotics competitions, but those aren't specifically necessary by any means - if you have the opportunity for those kind of things then take it, if not don't sweat it and just focus on doing wider reading around the subject area, understanding the scope of the field, current developments, what the future of the field looks like etc.

thanks