<p>Hello!
I've a tiny question on how do colleges determine whether some activity is EC or not EC. Is it required to be an official thing? For example, I don't attend any club at school (but I do sports) and my unrelated to school hobby is programming, will that count?
Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>yea I'm wondering this too...</p>
<p>ECs are any activities you do that isnt school work. You make almost anything into an EC.</p>
<p>Last year on my app I included as an EC meeting with a Russian girl once a week for 3 hours each to discuss Russian literature.... Anyway, I got into that college no prob, so I guess that means my EC creativity was permissible.</p>
<p>ceecee, your EC was probably not only permissible, but regarded by colleges as outstanding. It's clear that you did that out of genuine interest in languages. You showed a lot of creativity and leadership in arranging that EC. You clearly weren't faking some EC to try to look good to colleges.</p>
<p>Huh? That counts? Maybe I should include how every day I spend one-two hours discussing history online.</p>
<p>Ray,
What you describe could be a good topic for an essay.</p>
<p>If you created, monitor and participate in an online history discussion forum that would probably be an impressive EC. </p>
<p>You could try listening your current on-line history discussions as an EC, and perhaps adcoms would be impressed since it does show that you have a grat interest in history. If you do this, name the discussion boards that you use.</p>
<p>Particularly if you're doing other history-related activities -- history fair, taking AP history, taking college history courses over the summer, doing even informal history research on your own such as spending your weekends visiting Civil War sites -- all could show that you have a passion about history, and yes, those activities would count as ECs.</p>
<p>Very interesting thread, I would definately appreciate more responses. </p>
<p>In one thread someone said that they put "Drawing" on their list as EC's, and another said they put Dominoes aswell, because he plays dominoes regularly with his family.</p>
<p>So I would presume, that anything that you do that is not schoolwork, they might be interested in.</p>
<p>What I would like is some ideas for EC's pertaining to history/politics/international politics. Maybe you can help me out Northstarmom? Btw, I plan on going to Israel this summer for 45-60 days, so I would definately like to make that out to be a useful trip, instead of just going to the beaches like the other times I usually visited. :P</p>
<p>any further comments Northstarmom?</p>
<p>dominoes?</p>
<p>play video games..</p>
<p>oh yeah, I was wondering about that.</p>
<p>I do play strategy games like Civilization 4, and Age of Empires. Although they are games, they are not the type of mindless games that most people play, its games that actually require you to think and use strategy, alot like Chess but with better graphics and mechanics. Anyways, how would you go about including this in the list of EC's, if you should at all?</p>
<p>hey somebody here in CC put playing chess with his/her family. That's an EC.</p>
<p>Hey, I do planting/gardening/horticultural activities as an EC because I love horticulture. Anything related to plants, trees, flowers, involving soil, etc etc. I keep an "Organic MySpace" . It's a reeeeeeeeallly small portion of soil where i put decorations and plant flowers on it. Boy, you dont know how good it feels to see those sprouts grow..</p>