<p>In terms of what “the books” say. There is a trend in some circles of kids to pad their EC resume by joining every club and stressing about how to have enough. Over on the kid’s forums there are many threads by kids fearing that they should add more. THEN . . . the word on the street was that colleges wanted passion. The kids were advising one another to drop ECs because they needed to show passion in just a couple. Then they were strategizing about which ones would “look best”. Your son is different in that his activities are self generated because her likes to do them. When he gets tired of them of feels a time crunch, as long as he doesn’t feel outside pressure to keep them all going he might edit his schedule some. He seems successful and engaged, and wouldn’t you want your son to end up at a school that appreciates him for who he is?</p>
<p>As others have expressed, let your son be who he is. He enjoys what he is doing. When it comes time to apply to college, he will showcase who he is. </p>
<p>My oldest child was a lot like your son…extremely well rounded with several passions and she excelled at them all. In fact, one of her main college essays was all about her well rounded-ness and I think she titled it “21st Century Renaissance Woman.” She never chose what she did in high school around college admissions. She did what she wanted to do out of sheer interest. She got into most of the schools she applied to (very selective ones) and attended Brown for undergraduate school, and went onto grad school at MIT and is now at grad school at Berkeley. She specialized later on. </p>
<p>My other kid, who was equally well rounded, had a huge passion from the time she was a preschooler and so by middle school, she gave up all the other areas to focus on her main area of passion and so she specialized from a young age in performing arts (several areas of it, but her main area was musical theater). She entered a specialized college degree program (BFA in musical theater) at NYU/Tisch. Her entire life has been in this field and she now has a career in it. Her ECs growing up became her field of study in college and her career, whereas my other kid’s ECs continued into college but are not her career or field of study.</p>
<p>So, I have had one kid follow the “well rounded” path and one who specialized in an area of passion and I have to say, neither way is better than the other but just different. But these are who they are as people and they did what they wanted to do without ANY thought to what would “look good for college,” and both got into top choice colleges that were highly selective. </p>
<p>Your son should keep on keeping on with what he is doing out of sheer interest. He should hopefully excel in these areas of interest. He will do fine getting into college.</p>
<p>PS, my post was written as a mother but I actually am also a college counselor and since you are concerned with what your son “should” do, as you can see, I also have expertise in this area and so my advice is not only from the perspective of a mother who shared her own kids as examples, but I also know a thing or two about this topic.</p>
<p>Thanks so much for all of your posts and good advice.</p>
<p>I am glad that you brought up the idea of “padding the resume” with ECs. My son’s involvement is definitely self-generated. He hasn’t been choosing them based on how they would look on an app because I don’t think he really thinks about it. He isn’t interested in reading the books on college admission that I have been reading. He’s too busy, I guess. That, and I think he is enjoying being a high schooler and not really worrying about college yet. So I don’t really think he gives any thought to what might “look good”. </p>
<p>From all I was reading, it was looking like colleges would think he was padding his resume if he had a long list of ECs. Maybe he won’t be able to list them all and should choose the most important ones? And maybe those will be the ones he sticks with through the next 2 years anyway?</p>
<p>What doesn’t look good is a long list of ECs that are not significant (like clubs that meet an hour per week or some such) or activities that are not of long duration (like a year or so) or with no significant contributions, roles, or achievements. I was saying earlier, however, that a student who is well rounded and doesn’t stick with one singular passion is gonna be fine as long as the multiple ECs are over time (many years) with time devoted to them (more than an hour per week) and with achievements, contributions, etc. It seemed to me that your son was doing the latter, which is what my well rounded D did. Her ECs were lifelong and each involved many hours per week, as well as she had significant contributions, roles, and achievements in those areas. She simply did not specialize in one area of passion and had several areas of passion. But this is different than a laundry list of padding a resume such as joining lots of clubs or adding new ECs in junior year and so on and so forth, with nothing to show for those endeavors. My D stuck with all her ECs because she loved them, simply put. And she included them all on her activity resume for college. She was able to show the number of years involved and hours involved and contributions and achievements in those activities. I would not liken that sort of thing to a laundry list, which one should avoid, of insignificant activities of short duration with nothing to show for them.</p>
<p>If your son is doing activities due to sheer interest and is quite involved with them, then he is like my older D, who never ever gave a thought as to what would look good for college. Had she never gone to college, she would have been immersed in the very same activities I’m certain.</p>
<p>Older D was in student government all 4 years–School President as a senior. Leads in Musicals. Founded and directed a co-ed accapella group. Exec board of choir. Did research for 3 years. Leadership in several honor societies. Strong artist (sent portfolio to several schools.)</p>
<p>In the end I think the schools viewed her as a “music/ theatre (creative) kid with strong leadership skills.”</p>
<p>The only time she had to give up anything was senior year when she had to choose music theory over AP art. By that time she had decided she might pursue music or theatre as a major.</p>
<p>Her main essay was about leading her accapella group and in the end putting in place strong leaders for the group’s future so it would continue without her.</p>
<p>So without listing all her EC’s, the essay reinforced that strong musician/ strong leader combo.</p>