Extracurricular hours

<p>I know ecs are not about hour counting so much as quality, but roughly how many hours per week/weeks per year of a single ec is considered "good" (or as the ad com likes to say, "showing in-depth and not superficial involvement"?)</p>

<p>Although the Common App asks for hours per week/weeks per year, a student’s commitment and passion for an activity is really shown in years of devotion. Don’t think about what an Admissions Director wants to see, write down the approximate amount of time YOU devoted to the activity. Anything less will be untruthful.</p>

<p>I have 1092. In just one activity. But even as an athlete, I think that’s going to be pretty high up.</p>

<p>@gibby
I didn’t mean to suggest that I was planning to lie to get a leg up! All I was saying is that I have a lot of activities, all of which I am passionate about (I dropped out of a bunch of others because I wasn’t), but not all of which fit on the application form. I was only interested in what the “showing in-depth and not superficial involvement” means, but I your point that years rather than hours matters more is well-taken, thank you.</p>

<p>The directions on the Common App ask you to list extracurriculars in the order of importance to you, so I would do just that. If you have more EC’s than will fit on the list, you can list the extra EC’s on the “Additional Information” section.</p>

<p>@maomao123: from the threads you have been starting, I think you are thinking too much about the numbers and the admissions process. If you are an applicant, you should be focusing on presenting the best, true picture of yourself in your application.</p>

<p>As a testament to numbers ≠ everything, marching band at my school is ~30 hours per week for four months. So, about 16 wks * 30 = 480 hours. And if you’re at it for four years that is ~1920 hours. I know of several people in it who aren’t really into the activity, yet they are throwing nearly 2k hours into the EC. Surely not quality.</p>