What constitutes an extracurricular activity?

Applying to College
1

<p>I find some people who add like 20-30 things as extracurricular activities, and my mind is at awe. My school only allows you entrance into two clubs, and freshmen typically are excluded from clubs, so all I'll have is 3 years of debate, a year of board games (my school's equivalent to chess club) and 2 years of genealogy, which isn't too impressive.
So that leads to my question, what constitutes an extracurricular activity?
For example, me and a pal create video games, scripts, programs and do 3D computer modeling. Would this count as an extracurricular activity? </p>

2

<p>Certainly, out of school activities count. Almost all of my kid’s activities are outside of school but there is still some structure and “paper trail” to their doings if that makes sense. I do think what counts depends a bit on how it’s practiced. If you are creating games that only you and your buddy ever see… I’m not so sure how positively colleges would look at that. However, if you had your own sever for which 50 people played on a game you designed and kept up… that might have a little more credibility. </p>

<p>I’ll say that colleges often say that they aren’t interested in a laundry list of activities. Being in 20-30 activities isn’t a positive. You just can’t give 20-30 activities real depth of involvement. 3 years of debate and two clubs that you are interested in is quite alright. It would be nice to put the programming in if it’s important to you and takes up a large amount of time. You’d just need to package it in a good way.</p>

3

<p>Commitment and some (doesn’t need to be a lot) structure.
Commitment is self-explanatory.
Structure is basically a short way to say that it’s something you do on a semi-regular basis. It doesn’t necessarily have to be part of a big organization (or for that matter, a school-sanctioned organization).
Sometimes showing that your hobby fits one of these criteria is easy, but the other can be challenging. For example, commitment to “graphics design” can be difficult to show. So enter a contest and win something! </p>