extracurriculars?

I’m a sophomore in high school (GPA is 4.16W just throwing it out there because I don’t really know where I stand with others my age) and I’m just all around nervous about college because it’s never too early to start thinking about college. I’m into CS, and I feel like I have what one might call a “laundry list” of extracurriculars, many of which I took up this year, and for the sake of privacy I won’t disclose the exact names:

  • a coding club for girls at my school
  • intermediate computer team (started this year)
  • honor society for the language i take
  • i tutor third graders (started this year)
  • JV lacrosse (not sure if I’ll make varsity this year, probably not)
  • a nonprofit organization where you design your own cards and sell them, then donate the money to a charity foundation
  • a nonprofit organization that fosters interest in CS through workshops that our team designs. I am a member of the production team
  • idk if this counts but culture club for my ethnicity
  • i also don’t know if this counts because i haven’t won any awards for it but i’ve loved to write since like third grade

I’m worried that because many of these have a really minimal time commitment (some of them are literally like once a month for an hour or less commitment than that), and because I have like no leadership positions and nothing I’m particularly good at, it will look bad. Should I be narrowing down my list, if none of them are particularly time-consuming? Should I find more time-consuming ones? What are some suggestions? Ideally I want to find/pursue things I actually like, but I also want to find something that actually showcases the effort I put in, like volunteering? except i don’t know where i can consistently volunteer every year, usually it’s like one-time volunteering opportunities and i’m not affiliated with a church group or anything.

You should do what interests you. NO college requires a single hour of volunteering. ECs in general don’t mean much to colleges except for the tippy top ones.

Honestly, viable candidates for tippy top colleges aren’t seeking others’ advice on their ECs. They’re making mature decisions and secure in those choices. You have it within you to make the choices for what best engages you. Don’t do a SINGLE thing for your resume or for college admissions officers’ eyes.

A cynical (and to me, humorous) post on ECs and how to get into Harvard:

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/harvard-university/835055-calculate-your-chances-for-admission-to-harvard.html