Hi guys! I am currently a Junior who is starting to think about the scary scheme of the college admissions process. I realized that I don’t really have that many extra-curriculars, but I invest a lot of time in them. So is it technically better to have less ECs with more time investment, compared to someone else who has a load of ECs but does not spend as much time on them? Are 4 ECs too little?
My personal opinion is that if you have those four ECs that you invest a lot of time in and care a lot about, your passion for them will outshine a moderate amount of care about a ton of ECs in a college application.
If those other ECs have to do with stuff you’re interested in, yeah, feel free to join a couple, but make sure you don’t overextend yourself. I certainly did that, especially senior year. There were a few ECs that I wasn’t able to properly invest myself in, and they were for that reason bordering on a waste of time, time that I could have invested in ECs I cared more about.
You should also look and see if ANY of your target colleges even care about ECs. About 85% of US colleges don’t care one lick.
For selective colleges 1-3 things you do in school and 1 outside of school are more than enough. Some will do a little more some a little less. In general though it’s really better to be involved in something with leadership (I don’t mean being president, I mean really contributing) is more important than having a lot of activities.
Depth of involvement in ECs is more important than number of ECs.