Extracurricular Activity Advice

The simple message about extracurricular activities is that it's quality, not quantity: always choose doing one or two well than skimming over five to ten.  Colleges are looking at extracurriculars to see what a students brings to the college other than just strong test scores and evaluations, and this can often make the difference in admissions.  That's well known in the case of sports: they'll take you this year if they need a quarterback but not if they need a defensive end.  However, it's also true in many other areas.  If you play the violin seriously, they may have a full compliment of violinists, but if you play the oboe, it's less likely that they'll be full up on that instrument.  They want a balance of arty kids, nerdy kids, political kids, literary kids, athletic kids and definitely service oriented kids because all of these make a campus a better place to live.  They need to fill an orchestra and marching band just as much as they may need to fill a football or hockey team.  They need people to run the campus newspaper and radio station and student government too.  They also really want kind, supportive people on campus, and they want leaders to run things.  

Extracurricular activities are the best way to demonstrate which of these things you might bring to their campus, but if you just showed up to some meetings, that's not what they're looking for.  A vital extracurricular can be the basis of a great college/senior essay because it's about something you should be enthusiastic about and can go into a bit of depth about a side of you (and a talent) that's not on your transcript or in your evaluations.  It's also a way of showing addition skills you bring: value added to your academic record.  Therefore, doing one thing really well and intensely over time is much more important than dipping into lots of things.  

Find something you love, and do it!  If you can innovate/take a leadership role, all the better!

Notes from InGenius's Webinar on filling out the Common App Activity List 24: This is worth reading well ahead of senior year as it indicates what colleges are looking for in terms of financial aid.

What Counts as an extracurricular activity 21

What Counts as an extracurricular activity 21

For a good clearinghouse of extracurricular activity ideas, go to https://www.shemmassianconsulting.com/blog/extracurricular-activities

Here's an article that was written during Corona Virus but has good advice at any time:   https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lpQoUSPDOi41nnQCbM2kmUbuuiTCHFmoST02vD9czPg/edit?usp=sharing