List of ECs

poetrygirl
Thu, 01 May 2008 03:11:17 +0000

I think in the “activities” list, it’s reasonable to list all/most of your activities. They ask you to list what you’ve participated in, so I would do so. There’s nothing wrong with lots of activities…it’s only a bad thing if you’re just doing it for colleges or because you have to but don’t really care about what you’re doing. In an essay and your paragraphs or whatever, if you choose to write about an activity, just choose one or a couple. That way you show you’ve got both bredth and depth.
I’m talking mostly about the common app here, but it applies to other applications. List your activities in the section where it asks for them, then go into detail about 2 or 3 of the ones you most care about (presuming there’s a place for that on the application/supplement).

However–I would also add that you should make sure your ECs are real ECs. You might knock a few off your “laundry list.” As an example, maybe you were part of a club one year, but only made it to the occational meeting and didn’t otherwise participate much, or maybe your friend dragged you along to some hours of community service a few times–but you were just stacking cans and didn’t get anything out of it.
Basically, if you feel there are any activities on your list that you could not think of five or six things you enjoyed or got out of the activity (especially if there wasn’t much time commitment), I wouldn’t bother putting it down. (I’m only saying this because you said you had “pages and pages”–if some of those are activities you couldn’t care less about or didn’t put much time into, they probably aren’t important.)

Maybe none of your activities are like that–I don’t know. You also mention activities you were only part of for one year–those are certainly valid and you should put them down if you put time and effort into them.

That’s just my two cents. Others might say differently, but that’s what I’d do.