Are these good extracurriculars?

Applying to College
1

I know that extracurriculars are a very important part of a student’s admissions profile. I intended to join lots of different activities during my freshman year of high school, but it didn’t work out so well (my schedule wasn’t compatible with one club, I didn’t get into another one, two of them met at the same time, etc.) I wanted to know if this list of extracurriculars would look impressive to a prestigious public or Ivy-caliber university:

Literary magazine, freshman through senior year (on the board senior year)
Bowling team, sophomore through senior year (possibly captain senior year?)
Improvisational theater, junior and senior year (also took acting classes junior year and was inducted into the International Thespian Society during senior year)
Debate team, junior and senior year; I helped to revive the debate team at my school after it had been discontinued

Community service: 50 hours sophomore year, 100 hours junior and senior year
National Honor Society, junior and senior year; I was honored at Awards Night for all four years

*I’m only a sophomore, so most of this is hypothetical. So far I’m part of Lit Mag and the bowling team, I was honored at Awards Night last year, and I’ve done 35 hours of community service for this year. I’m just trying to create a game plan.

2

To repeat the conventional wisdom, ‘depth not breadth.’ You don’t need to do 6 ECs. In fact you shouldn’t do 6 ECs. You need to pick 2-3 that you care about and invest your time in doing something that makes an impact, demonstrates expertise, pushes your boundaries and helps you learn new skills. That’s the point of an EC - not ‘well-roundedness,’ not ‘leadership’ that includes a title, not something intended to impress an admissions person (who has seen it all, and then some…) If you are doing something that doesn’t bring you joy, then drop it and try something new. You don’t get points for suffering through something you don’t much like just to demonstrate ‘commitment.’ And yes, it’s fine to do something with your friends just because it’s fun.

Not only will your quality of life be better - with time for sleep, study and friends - but you will actually get more out of the ECs that you do engage in and have a bigger impact. You might even end up being a more interesting person as a result and have something compelling to say in your essays and interviews too.

For further advice, check out Cal Newport’s web site and resources, Study Hacks. He is the gold standard for advice in this area.