<p>I’ll have to take blame for the wording of my post, I did not realize it would be perceived that way. I was not trying to say that an EC activity would be a critical factor of the application, but if left empty would leave the Admissions Counselors wondering: Why is it blank? If it is easy to do virtually anything and label it EC, why didn’t the applicant do anything worthy of entering if it is so easy? Having plenty of informal EC’s is great, (I have many myself) but it will not help much if you are unable to produce some type of documentation or organization you worked with. It’s like the difference between someone standing up and saying “I use computers all the time” compared to someone that produces a degree that says “BS in Computer Science” We know who will win that choice.</p>
<p>I picked those two examples at random, although I have been a USCF member since 2008. (A decent amount of time before I knew the GS program even existed.) </p>
<p>Let’s be honest though, the GS program is clearly looking at people beyond just their academic achievements. True, we applicants have a break in education since high school, but what did/are we doing with that time? Academic achievement is only part of the equation. I personally would not dare to leave any blanks at all on the application, unless say it is related to some family box. I did choose a few EC’s that were of interest to me because 1) They were fun and 2) It would help with my application. Nothing wrong with that :)</p>
<p>tl;dnr : Leave no blank boxes if you can help it imho :)</p>