<p>My anxiety has been bothering me lately. I've talked to some of my classmates who have already submitted their Common Applications and a lot of them claimed that they filled the entire Common Application extracurricular activity page (10 activities?) and needed to upload an additional information document to cover more extracurricular activities. A lot of my more close friends have done the same thing, filling the Common Application with various job positions, club and sports memberships, and volunteering activities.</p>
<p>I only filled seven spaces of somewhat pathetic extracurricular activities page and the entire honors/awards section with things other than typical honor roll. book award, AP Scholar, etc. (I added an additional document to cover those). And my extracurricular activities didn't even take up that much time. Five of those extracurriculars only took around 20-30 hours a year. The only extracurricular that seems somewhat substantial was some genealogy work which has amassed 400+ hours throughout my high school career. For my award list, I listed somewhat interesting stuff like that I was an international handwriting champion, international writing champion, and national scholarship recipient. But that's it. </p>
<p>I feel that I might have more interesting things and more recognition than my classmates, but I also feel that I wasn't "busy" enough. I didn't spend my entire evenings working or playing a sport and I feel that that might cost me an admissions offer. I feel that my good grades and good test scores (97% GPA and 29 ACT) and my "lack" of extracurriculars will just make me look like a stereotypical Asian kid with no life.</p>
<p>Are you kidding? I would argue that you should have 5-7 that you are involved in/dedicated to. There is no way anyone can be truly dedicated to 10+ ecs</p>
<p>No, I’m serious. I have classmates that listed 10+ extracurricular activities. One Ivy league hopeful listed 16 extracurriculars. Another guy I know listed 13 extracurricular activities.</p>
<p>Ivy hopeful doesn’t mean anything. I am Ivy hopeful as well, but that doesn’t mean that I am going to get in. I only filled up seven activities like you. Two of them I stopped after Sophomore year, so I really only had five my junior and senior years, all of which took up large chunks of hours. I personally like to think that colleges do not want a ton of random activities that only take up a little time. Then again, this view is in favor of myself so it is probably just confirmation bias.</p>
<p>The vast majority of schools do not care about ECs. They care about grades and scores. And those colleges that do care about ECs are not looking for laundry lists or joiners, they are looking for students with depth of personality who are involved in what interests them. You’ll be fine.</p>