<p>on the common app, do people usually put academic stuff like 'NHS' or 'Quiz Bowl Team'?? Can you put ACTUAL hobbies, like gardening or something if you do it on a regular business?</p>
<p>lol gardening</p>
<p>well if you won some type of recongition for it.</p>
<p>i had kind of the same question...10 years tennis but no awards or anything :-</p>
<p>I would think so. Anything outside of school can be considered as EC</p>
<p>lol gardening</p>
<p>well if you have won awards for your garden i would put it for sure. haha
im sure that takes a lot of time. and if you are a competitive gardener it would be very unique.</p>
<p>not sure that competitive gardening exists. but hey. why not</p>
<p>im definitely highlighting the fact that i like to mountain unicycle on my app. heck....i even wrote an essay about unicycling. I never won any awards for it....dnt think there really are any awards. but ya. haha. thats how i spend my time. i want them to know that. i think it shows more of who you are than dare i say generic things like NHS or quizbowl. lots of people seem to have those. futhermore....in an interview if you put something like that on your app, it can generate some really cool conversations.
just my opinion. but ya.</p>
<p>Put it.
I put art because a bulk of my time was spent doing art.
Don't put it to fill up space if you really are not into it.
I only put what I REALLY loved on my app, even though it was only around three or four things.</p>
<p>Of course- it's something you do while not in school. Most schools have gardening clubs. It'd be good to explain it if it is a passion but I think if it's just something you do and you spend 2 hours a week doing it then it's great!</p>
<p>College admissions officers say they "want to know who you are," and essays and ECs are what tell them. Be honest. Tell them who you are. If you like to spend your time gardening, that's part of who you are. I heard an admissions officer at Bowdoin say, "I don't care if your passion is stamp collecting, I just want to see that you have a passion." Gardening probably won't help as much as being a potential varsity athlete, but if that's what you like to do and it's how you spend your time, they'll get a better sense of the "whole person" than if you just leave it blank. And by the way, on our recent round of college tours I got the distinct impression that a lot of adcoms are getting a little fed up with the hypercompetitive, check-off-the-box lists of ECs they were getting from some applicants who didn't seem to really care about any of it but were just engaged in an EC "arms race" to try to gain an edge in admissions. They all spoke pretty disdainfully of that sort of application. They want to see something real. Gardening is real. Go for it.</p>