Choosing what ECs to include in applicationAnswered
I am not sure if there is a limit to how many ECs you can include in the application, but I have been told that around 10 is the number I should be aiming for, which means I will have to cut out a lot of my ECs from my application.
I found a lot of guides about what types of ECs universities want, but I can't tell which ones are more important than others. For example, would I include being on the school hackathon team to make a carbon footprint tracker app and coming in 4th at the equivalent of state-level? Or would it be better to put down graphic design (making posters, tickets, programs for various school plays, fundraisers, graduation night, school prize giving ceremony, etc)?
Is there a way to figure out which activities are more important or impressive to universities? I wouldn't want my application to suffer just because I chose to include MUN rather than functional UI design, but I can't find any resources that say which would help my application more.
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2 answers
Hello!
First I will start off by saying that, on the common app, there should be this extra information section that you can use to list additional extracurriculars. However, if you want to focus on ranking, there are several directions you can go:
1. Build a story: this would be ranking extracurriculars by how much they relate to what you want the admissions officer to know about you. Are you interested in environmental sustainability and want to major in environmental science? Great! Don’t put being a member of MUN at the top. Are you interested in politics and international relations? Do the opposite. You’ll likely have several extracurriculars in one subject area, so look at method 2 for tips on organizing those. (This is probably the best method in my opinion, just to get a more genuine application)
2. Go by international, National, and regional accomplishments. This is pretty self explanatory, but essentially just put the more widely recognized extracurriculars at the top, and the ones you did at a school level at the bottom. But this also has its downsides. What if you were a president of a club at your school and you put that below a general writer for a regional magazine — this could be debatable, which is why using method 1 could be more helpful.
Truly, I think you should focus on method 1 and use method 2 as needed. If you just use method 1, you might accidentally include smaller extracurriculars that won’t help your chances, but using method 2 might get you an unorganized list.
Hope this helped! Good luck :)
Although you can only list 10 ECs in the Common App Activities section, there is space under the writing section where you can provide additional information that you have been unable to cover elsewhere.
As for prioritizing which 10 activities to enlist, put activities at higher level first(begin with international, then national, state, regional, and school)
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Are you an international applicant? If so then from where?