<p>I'm involved in many school and volunteer related activities and have a part time job. But what truly defines me are my hobbies, including traveling and hiking, both are things I love and enjoy doing whenever I can. These things are a big part of my life and, although I know they don't necessarily show off any great skills of mine, I was just curious if I should include them anywhere on my college application.</p>
<p>You can certainly include them, perhaps along with an explanation as to how they are important parts of your life.</p>
<p>If you’re planning on majoring in something like environmental science, your hobbies would be worth including. If you’re going into something like international economics, not really.</p>
<p>^Really? Does your extracurricular have to directly correspond to your career interests so that anything unrelated to it is unimportant? I mean, I enjoy art and music and that will most likely have absolutely nothing to do with my potential major or career. Hypothetically speaking, should I not include it on a college application?</p>
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<p>Well this sounds like a statement of a personal nature.</p>
<p>It matters how and where you talk about it. You may want to talk about this in the “why X college” essay in regard to their wonderful outing club. Or, you may want to use the hiking in an essay. I would be careful about the trips if they are richy rich. They like passion of any sort but you need to also show your academic interest somewhere. It is not a yes or no but how you show the true you to them- include it where appropriate and not to the exclusion of any academic interest/passion.</p>
<p>@xrCalico23 That’s not what I meant at all. It’s just that traveling and hiking are such arbitrary things that probably won’t affect adcoms’ opinion on the applicant. They’re fine to mention so as to give them a view into the applicant’s life outside school. I was just giving the OP a way to tie their hobbies to what they want to achieve in school.</p>
<p>^Okay, gotcha :).</p>
<p>of course your hobbies matter- it’s not like it’ll hurt you in your app if you put it in there.</p>
<p>Include hiking. It will be unique, and you say you’ve spent a lot of time doing it. Nothing like a good hike, anyhow. It may not be impressive as being an ISEF finalist or winning Nationals in Debate, but there’s no way it could work against you. :)</p>