<p>This article has several admissions officers weighing in on quality versus quantity</p>
<p>I think that's a determination to be made by the student. I'm president/captain/leader of 4 activities this year, but I chose the activities and responsibilities carefully so they wouldn't be too much. I know kids with fewer activities who are totally swamped, and of course I know kids who do more and who are also swamped. Finding your personal balance (specific extracurricular mix to let you explore your interests at the same time as maintain your GPA is all you need to do</p>
<p>It is overloaded whenever the participation is less about desire to participate than about the desire to build a resume.</p>
<p>It is overload when a student doesn't have any social life</p>
<p>It is overload when it becomes more of a burden than a pleasure, when the activities are not ones the student loves to do, and/or when the student doesn't have enough time to sleep or just relax because the schedule is so demanding.</p>
<p>I was about to start a new thread titled "My son's favorite EC" but if it's OK with you I will just use yours: Now that the cross country season with its daily 2 hour practices has ended, my son is not involved in a winter varsity sport. Every day after school he either lifts weights at school or if that is too crowded goes to the local YMCA. He also arranges pickup basketball games with a group of friends. They either find gym space or weather permitting play outside. He could probably make the varsity but wouldn't play much and vastly prefers his current routine. Somehow, amazingly we seem to have weaned him from his video games that used to be his favorite EC.</p>
<p>We've found throught experiences that once you get past one hand counting EC's things get hard. You end up doing alot of things poorly. Keeping it to one hand means you can do those things well.</p>