Discussion on Extra Curricular Activities - Is there too much?

Applying to College
1

My daughter is a senior this year with high aspirations. She’s aiming for politics and government for undergrad. Her gpa/testing makes her competitive for top schools. She’s been active in ECs since freshman year. However, it’s really starting to crank up. Does she risk AO’s looking at all her activities and being skeptical that she could have done all this or really been significantly involved? As her parent I can vouch for the work she’s doing, but I won’t be in the admissions committees. She’s really putting a lot of time into these. I’ll list her major ECs and if you have advice about how she should handle this I would appreciate it. Thanks
National Political Organization

  1. President of HS Club for this party
  2. Junior Year Communications Editor for their National Publication
  3. Senior Year Editor in Chief for their National Publication
    Girl Scouts
  4. Awards - Bronze, Silver, and Gold
  5. Junior/Senior Year - On the State Board of Directors for Girl Scouts
  6. Junior/Senior Year - On the Communications Team for her Girl Scouts organization on state level
  7. Junior/Senior Year - Speaks at many Girl Scouts events and joins panels for discussions with the girls.
  8. This summer started the first Girl Scout troop in a country that has no organizations for the betterment of girls and women. This is a country that still has a long way to go when it comes to women’s rights/equality. It closely ties to her heritage. She continues to work with the troop with materials and joins meetings, giving them guidance. She’s hoping to help them grow across the city.
    League of Women Voters
    Senior Year - Spearheading campaign to create clubs in all her city high schools, as well as is the under 18 liaison for the city.
    2016 Election Cycle
    Junior year - The team lead for opposition research for State Senate campaign and also volunteered on State House of Rep campaign.
    Sophomore year - Volunteered on US Senate campaign. (Out of Cycle Election)
    Activism
  9. Currently fighting the local school board to change a policy the board implemented this summer. The policy affects all grades in all city high schools. She has spoken before the board with a compromise solution. The board has yet to respond. This involves building a city-wide coalition of affected high school students, family and friends. This movement is in its infancy but is gaining a lot of steam. She’s been interviewed by all the local news stations and is starting to garner a lot of local attention. She may be coordinating sit-outs and/or demonstrations outside the city school system if they don’t work with the students.
  10. She’s marched in several demonstrations for women’s rights and other issues that matter to her.
    Journalism
    Sophomore year - She created an online journal (15 articles or so) that discuss federal policies that adversely affect minorities and those disadvantaged in society that have cancer. Just 12 months later she lost her grandmother to lung cancer. It was very sudden and she did not know that her grandmother had cancer or that her work would have personal meaning. (none of us knew)

So she’s doing all this while trying to write essays and keep her grades up while taking 8 AP level classes this year.
I’m concerned some AO’s may look at all this and be skeptical. Any advice?

2

AO’s don’t have to know about everything she does. They only see what she writes, and if she tightens up her EC involvement and edits it to a narrative and not a laundry list, it will be much more effective. Listing every march she’s ever attended doesn’t do much for her; noting “political activism” as her main EC, and perhaps an essay topic is much more effective IMHO.

3

She’ll have to put an average number of hours spent on each activity on the application, so as long as they don’t add up to too many hours per day she should be OK. Very impressive list!