<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I’m just finishing up part 1 of my application and I noticed that I have 9 EC activities. Is this too much? The thing is, all 9 of these are equally important to me… All the time I have put in to these things, I feel like I’m wasting my pride if I shorten to 5 or 6.</p>
<p>Any advice?</p>
<p>I’m guessing that you got the idea that 9 is “too much” from conversations you’ve read or had about “how to make your application stand out” or “what admissions committees want.” I’m further guessing that this is where you pulled the number 5 or 6 from. And while it’s not a good idea to list everything you’ve ever done, including that meeting of the Snake Welfare Club that you only went to one time, it’s equally silly to leave things out in hopes of looking ‘more committed to a few things’ to please an AdCom. If you’ve spent equal amounts of time and passion on 9 things, that tells me something about you, and something about the activities you are involved with. Without knowing what these 9 things are, I would assume that you aren’t heavily involved in a particular sport or arts group that typically require a significantly larger chunk of your time. I have no idea what your EC’s are, and I don’t know you, so keep that in mind.</p>
<p>If you’ve been genuinely involved with 9 groups, say it, and then be prepared to talk later about how you manage your time. Be prepared to answer the question of why you kept joining groups and looking for new things to do long after the point when most have found enough things to sink their passions into. It doesn’t mean you’re wrong to live that way–it’s probably the key to what makes you tick, which ultimately is what is going to make you attractive to a Boarding School. 9 isn’t better and it isn’t worse; it’s what you chose to do. We keep saying it over and over: present them who you actually are rather than what you think they want to hear.</p>
<p>No. It’s only too much if the student flits around and tries to pad their resumes with a lot of activities. Some students do one or two things in depth. Others do many. Those students are looked on favorably. Students who suddenly rush to add things to their portfolio in the hopes of looking good at admissions time are the ones who aren’t fooling anyone.</p>
<p>Be yourself and don’t second guess the application. The Adcoms want to see you - not some sanitized, overly analyzed application version. If you have nine activities, then own them, list them, and move forward.</p>