zyl1024

Hi everyone,
I am an international student and have seen many chance thread. I've noticed that most HYPSM chances have activities that last for four years (four year debate, four year community service, four year librarian, etc.) So are four-year activities compared to two-year or one-year activities that important in the application of top schools like HYPSM? What's the case for international students in particular (because in my country, students will finish junior high school (middle school) at grade 9 and start a different senior high school (high school) at grade 10, so most of activities are discontinued at that time)?

CentralFC

Dedication to one is overrated. Pick up as many as you can and call it good. Colleges won't care if you didn't maintain any passion.

T26E4

Perhaps CFC's sarcasm isn't clear but ignore his/her advice.

rmldad

The keys are passion and consistency. These qualities are easily demonstrated if you have played piano for 12 years. However, having an EC for only a year or two can also show passion and consistency if they are in conjunction with other activities. For example, a paid internship at a research lab might not start until your senior year, but it would necessarily have been preceeded by years invested in volunteering at the hospital, shadowing a doctor and/or a pre-med club.

Another way to look at it is through athletics. You might only have one year of varsity basketball, but it took two year of JV and another year on the freshman team to be able to list that single year of varsity experience.

M's Mom

Good explanations here. Also note that many people have a definition of an acceptable activity that is much too narrow. Your extra curricular activities don't have to be school-based, organized or lead by anyone. If you are an artist, active in your religious group, repair used cars, work part-time, take care of your siblings while your parents are at work, have your own blog, garden - really, anything at all that you have invested your time and effort in outside of school and can talk or write about with expertise and confidence is considered an extracurricular activity. The schools just want to know what you've learned outside of the classroom and what you can contribute to their community besides smarts.