<p>I can't decide if I should use all 10 of my EC slots on the common application. Like many people, 10 slots is not nearly enough to capture all of my extracurricular activities, but I don't want to seem like I'm "trying too hard". Several of the slots were very obvious such as my main varsity sports, my musical talent, and my role in the student government, but others I'm not sure if I should include. Right now I have 8 solid ECs and many other average ones that I could use to fill the final two spots but I don't know if I should. I've been to many college tours and the admissions deans always say something about how they don't like the applicant who goes overboard and tries to show off too much. Are any of my below activities worth including in my application? Any advice would be great!</p>
<p>These are some of the extracurriculars that I was considering including:
-YMCA basketball for 4 straight years in the winter
-one year of indoor track (10 hours/week) in the winter
-3 years of working as a youth soccer referee (8th, 9th, 10th grades)
-regular volunteering for habitat for humanity for the past 6 months (which I admittedly really only started doing for college applications which admissions deans will know)
-scholastic bowl (academic team) for 1 year
-habitat for humanity club for 2 years (only meet twice a month)</p>
<p>I don’t think you should list any of those, except maybe Habitat (they’ll probably be able to tell that you started it just for college, which is why I’m hesitant to tell you to definitely include it. Only put things that you’re currently doing, and also note that it doesn’t let you check a box to say that you’ve done it in middle school as well.</p>
<p>My only hesitation with the referee is as LAMuniv stated I’m no longer doing it which shows that I gave up on it and I wouldn’t be able to include 8th grade so it would only show 2 years of it</p>
<p>There is no rule saying you can only list what you are currently doing. That’s just a bad idea and I strongly disagree with that advice. Colleges want to know what you have spent your four years on, not only what you are doing now. People have changes in interests, people change jobs, opportunities are terminated. Listing only what you are currently doing just doesn’t tell the complete story. If you spent a lot of time on something, it doesn’t matter if you stopped- it shows how you have spent your time. Besides, colleges look very highly on being employed as a high schooler. As an example, my college app last year listed persian club, which I did 9th and 10th grade (which was important because it allowed me performance opportunities and allowed me to explore aspects of my heritage) and electronics club, which I only did 10th grade (i took analog/digital junior year and the club conflicted with one of my choirs), but I made a school first in something that a friend and I built (which if you see the achievements of some of the kids at my school, it’s a big deal- people have patents, have discovered stars, and the school’s even launched a student built satellite). </p>
<p>Sorry, as I was typing my response, Ioxed up your post with anpther - if you don’t have already have 10 spaces filled, then you can include it. It probably won’t be weighted as strongly as your more recent activities, though. As with all activities, you should only list it if it’s important to you, you dedicated a lot of your time/thoughts to it, etc. If you had more than 10 ECs and you had to cut ones from the list in order to make them all fit, then you should cut
the less recent ones, in my opinion. </p>
<p>OK thank you all, I appreciate the advice and now intend on using the refereeing as an extra curricular. The only other thing that I have to ask is if my initial concern was in any way valid that colleges don’t like to see people trying too hard to make themselves seem involved. For example, I know it is not a good idea to use all 4 of your teacher recommendations instead of using 2 or 3 quality ones so does the same concept apply to ECs? Is there any disadvantage to using all 10 ECs?</p>