<p>So as I'm sure all of you know, and likely hate, the Common App believes that no one could have done more than 10 important activities over their 4 years in high school. Unfortunately for me, I have only been able to narrow my list down to 11, even though I'd ideally like to have room for like 13 or 14. So I'm stuck between two activities for my last spot and I need your help to choose which one seems more impressive to colleges. The options are:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Science Olympiad</p></li>
<li><p>Co-Founder of my school's connect four club</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Now obviously science olympiad sounds more impressive at first glance, especially when considering the fact that I'm applying to be an engineer at all of my schools. But I feel like being the co-founder of a club is also fairly impressive as well, and probably a lot more unique and distinguishing than just another science extra-curricular. So what do you guys think? Is there anyway I could put one of them it that extra section at the end of the common app? Or do you think I could combine winter and spring track into one activity in order to open up a spot? Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>I’d say #2.</p>
<p>Colleges look for differentiated applicants, and I think being a co-founder is much more impressive than participation in an extracurricular (although the Science Olympiad is very impressive). </p>
<p>On the other hand, I suppose it also depends on what other activities you have listed. If you do not have any other science/math extracurriculars, you might want to put it down if you plan on going into engineering. If I am remembering correctly, the Common App has a box where you can type in stuff that didn’t fit in another part of the app (was it the common app that did this?) so I would check to see if you can add that in there, and explain why you felt it was important enough to be noted.</p>
<p>I would combine winter/spring track; but if you can’t do that, I’d agree that it depends on what you’ve already got listed. Lots of STEM? Skip the olympiad. Plenty of leadership? Other way around. (If there’s a particular school you really want to know you did one of them, you can always include it in a written portion/essay thing.)</p>
<p>Combine winter/spring track. Our school’s GC has even suggested to some students that they can combine MULTIPLE sports (ones where you are a participant rather than a captain, etc.) into one, using “Other sports” and then typing, for example “Track & Volleyball” to free up more space for other, important, extracurriculars</p>