<p>Has anyone ever used their personal hobbies as EC's? I have a lot of real EC's, but I'm really passionate about a hobby that I spend a great deal of my extra time doing. It's definitely not an EC by most standards, but do you think it'd be good to include it on my applications?</p>
<p>The joke goes that if you spend more time doing that than pooping, it counts as an extracurricular…or that’s how I’ve interpreted it as. So… Yes! Why not? However, be warned that I’m only a rising junior ;D! </p>
<p>I’d say so! Passion can get you accepted, if it’s genuine. Provided your passion isn’t something that admissions officers don’t care about, such as playing video games or ‘hanging out with friends’, I think that you would be served well by including it.</p>
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Is it productive? Have you accomplished anything with it? Would it maybe work better as an essay topic?</p>
<p>@halcyonheather I think the advantage of listing it under the EC list is that you can say exactly how much time you spend on it. For example, I spent about 5-7 hours each week doing something completely school-sponsoredless, so yeah O_o…</p>
<p>ECs definitely don’t have to be sponsored by your school! But a hobby (which presumably isn’t even sponsored by an organization outside of school) may or may not be a good EC to write down, depending on what it is and how seriously you take it. </p>
<p>Thanks for the input everyone. My hobby isn’t sponsored by anything but myself, so I will have to think whether I want to use up a spot to include it on my app.</p>
<p>If this is something you are passionate about and spend a lot of time on, I would list it. Especially if it’s something like taxidermy or music mastering or something that requires technical skill that can certainly carry over into college success. Writing, playing guitar, drawing intricate geo-political maps of imaginary lands, breeding cats, photography, organic gardening… all totally legit and interesting ECs, again especially if you’re passionate about it and spend a lot of time on it.</p>
<p>If it is TV watching or Videogame playing, I would say no.
If it is computer programming or photography or painting, then yes.</p>
<p>Think as an admission director: I don’t need more video game players, but having a bird enthusiast would make a more diverse student body.</p>
<p>Would this add to the diversity of the college?</p>
<p>but then anyone could list any activity as a hobby…</p>
<p>True…that is why most people try to work their EC into a school club. If I like Photography, perhaps I will be a Yearbook photographer or Newspaper Photographer. If I run, I might join the cross country team. If I like to knit I might start a Knitting club.</p>
<p>^ Yup. And if it’s something very practical, like an interest in biology, you can turn that into a position by getting an internship or a job doing research. However, even if what you do has no official position, as long as it is productive (hopefully in a positive way), then it’s totally valid (AKA submitting art to exhibits, or doing personal engineering projects). </p>