<p>Time and time again I've been told that the quality of your extracurriculars is more important than the quantity. I have dedicated myself to around 4 things during my high school life and I'm passionate about them all, yet when I look at the Harvard 2016 result thread I see that a majority of the people who were accepted had several extracurricular activities. So what is truly better, quality or quantity? Are the activities that people list on their application just smaller things to boost their chances?</p>
<p>quality. your definition of passion may no be the same as the colleges’ deifinitons</p>
<p>William Fitzsimmons, Dean of Harvard College, NY Times Blog: [Guidance</a> Office: Answers From Harvard’s Dean, Part 3 - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/harvarddean-part3/]Guidance”>Guidance Office: Answers From Harvard's Dean, Part 3 - The New York Times)</p>
<p>"The term “extracurricular activities” covers an enormous amount of ground. We are interested in whatever a student does: in addition to school extracurricular activities and athletics, students can tell us of significant community, employment, or family commitments. There are many who spend a great deal of time helping to run their household, preparing meals and caring for siblings or making money with a part-time job to help the household meet expenses.</p>
<p>Unfortunately many schools have had to curtail or eliminate extracurricular activities and athletics, or they charge fees for participation. In addition, many students cannot afford expensive musical instruments or athletic equipment — or have families without the resources to pay for lessons, summer programs and the transportation networks necessary to support such activities.</p>
<p>Admissions Committees keep these factors in mind as they review applications, and are concerned most of all to know how well students used the resources available to them. Extracurricular activities need not be exotic — most are not — and substance is far more important. A student who has made the most of opportunities day-to-day during secondary school is much more likely to do so during college and beyond. This applies to academic life as well as extracurricular activities."</p>
<p>So I understand that, but what do they think when they don’t see the extracurricular section on the application filled? Is it a more positive or negative reaction?</p>
<p>I remember as a freshman, people told me that I would need over 1,000 hours of community service to get into “good schools.” Fortunately or unfortunately, I didn’t heed to this advice and just pursued volunteer opportunities without a numerical hour tally (however, I figure after 4 years I would have invested by now a couple hundred hours, at least). Additionally, I recall my friends who joined a bajillion clubs at school, while I only did 1 community service orientated club (got exec position) and 1 academic club (our school math team). In short, my extracurriculars were really typical of what many motivated teens do: orchestra, math/science team, community service/helping the poor, science research. I think a school like Harvard definitely values passion over quantity, even though they want you to be well rounded. I recall in my Skype interview with an admissions officer, I was asked to talk about what I did for fun, and one thing I emphasized was the fact that I did my extracurriculars (though few in number) because I truly enjoyed doing them, and plan to continue similar interests in college. I think this point ultimately “put me over the top,” and this fall, I’ll probably be excited by all the activities on campus but I know I’ll have to cut down on what extracurriculars I join.</p>
<p>That makes a lot of sense. Thank you Icedcoffeee. Are you a Harvard student?</p>
<p>As an accepted Harvard student, my philosophy was that Harvard wants diversity in its student body, but not necessarily in you. I believe if you had to pick one over the other, quality is more important than quantity. With that said, I was probably one of the more well-rounded applicants in the pool this year. I had leadership positions in mock trial, debate, newspaper while still being involved in a lot of science activities, so having a lot of extracurriculars can still work. Keep in mind though that even if applicants seem well-rounded, most of them are still very high-level in their extracurriculars. For science competitions at least I was competing on the national/international level.</p>
<p>Quality is important, but that doesn’t necessarily come at the expense of quantity. My extracurriculars all centered around debate and writing at the national level, but I know other students accepted to H and peer schools who were more traditionally well-rounded but nevertheless pursued their talents at the state and inter/national levels.</p>
<p>Rowing (8 Seasons with 6 Varsity)
500+ Volunteer hours combined at 2 hospitals and a library
A job at a pharmacy over the summer (3 summers- 200 to 300 hours)</p>
<p>Would that be considered as good enough for the ivies + top schools?
I’m really passionate about all of those things and will probably express that somehow.</p>
<p>I am a member of a couple clubs and teams at my school, but not too many. Is listing summer activities and jobs on the application viewed any differently than these clubs? These activities are camps and programs that are quality extracurriculars by the way (debate camp and language program).</p>