<p>Should I include that i was on the JV volleyball team only my freshmen year on the common app? Does it exemplify a lack of long-term commitment?</p>
<p>I’m assuming you did not go on to the varsity volleyball team the next year?</p>
<p>You might want to just leave that off</p>
<p>I didn’t play varsity the following year. I just quit the team</p>
<p>They are looking for patterns. One item can’t be a pattern. If you have other things that you were committed to for longer periods of time, then good. If you have tons of stuff that you just tried for one semester or one year and quit, then bad. IOW it’s ok to have a few things that you just wanted to try and then decided they weren’t for you - in fact it shows you are willing to give something a try. </p>
<p>No one expects that you marched into hs on day one, joined everything you were interested in, and then never added or subtracted anything else. Colleges would like to see that you have been able to develop an interest and commitment to something, NOT that you have never tried and quit something. </p>
<p>Think about it. If you had to be in full rigor mortis by 9th grade, you could hardly be going in to college with Undecided as your major (and it’s the most popular choice). They fully expect that many of their college students will try and discard various majors - why would they be horrified that you tried and discarded a sport in Grade 9?</p>
<p>I wouldn’t list brief commitments such as those. Like you, I actually also played JV volleyball last year as a junior, but since I transferred schools again after my junior year and didn’t play anymore, I’m not putting that on my app since it didn’t really mean that much to me anyway.</p>
<p>I, on the other hand, WOULD list it, because it is just one of the things that show you were doing a variety of activities and had a variety of interests. Besides, simply listing “J.V. Volleyball, grade 9” doesn’t indicate whether you chose to quit after that or just didn’t make the Varsity team. No need to get into the nitty gritty of the situation. </p>
<p>People overanalyze this process far too much. Admissions departments get thousands of applications. Like it or not, they are not going to be spending hours parsing YOURS for every flyspeck of information and what it might or might not say about you.</p>
<p>Just leave it off. Does it look bad? No, not in and of itself. But it doesn’t add anything to your application either. Most colleges urge you to be discerning when creating your activity list. Let the adcoms know what matters to you by leaving insignificant ECs off.</p>