Exciting Extracurriculars: Discover and Deepen Your Interests

What do you do when you aren’t sleeping, doing schoolwork, or enjoying life with family and friends? Universities want to know! Whether you are applying to the US, Canada, Europe, or the UK, it is helpful to develop an extracurricular profile that reflects your values and intellectual curiosity. University life involves so much more than attending classes; undergraduates contribute to an environment that is rich in culture, innovation, and service to others. Your application will stand out if you can use your extracurricular activities to show admissions officers that you are already ‘that kind of person.’

Which extracurricular activities should I do?

Your time is limited, so this is one of the most common questions we hear. The most important advice is to pursue activities that help you meet your personal goals and satisfy your curiosity, not just those that you think will help you get into university. Admissions officers are skillful at detecting authenticity, so you should feel encouraged to ‘be yourself’ when planning your extracurricular life.

That said, we’ve seen that certain types of activities are both useful in admissions and exciting for students. The US and some Canadian universities evaluate students holistically, meaning they appreciate dedication to activities like music, art, sports, and volunteering as well as intellectual pursuits. The UK, Europe, and other Canadian universities mainly value extracurriculars that relate to your preferred academic program. Here are some categories of activities that could be tailored to your interests. These will be valued by any university if you participate in a committed and impactful way. We will return to these two key words at the end of this article.

Clubs in or out of school – ideally, you should work up to having a leadership role, but even if you don’t, it is valuable to show initiative and contribution in some way.

Online and residential courses – providers like Udemy, edX, Coursera, and universities themselves will help you explore and go deeper into your interests.

Awards and competitions – these could involve essay writing, coding, business pitches and plans, artistic creations, athletics, or subject-specific olympiads.

Work experience – test out fields that excite you. Your work could be paid or unpaid, in-person or virtual, and one week or more in duration; internships are one of the best ways to test and prove your interest in an area. Additionally, performing a job to earn money shows that you value independence and contributing to your future.

Research – completing a research project with a mentor or independently shows that you are intellectually curious and ready for a significant aspect of the university experience.

Personal projects – whether artistic, scientific, or entrepreneurial, you will impress admissions officers if you see problems or opportunities and do something about it! For example, you could prototype a product, design a curriculum, or even write a short story.

Volunteering – by serving within your community to help others, you show that you care about those in need. Working for the greater good is part of nearly every university’s mission.

Family responsibilities – some students care for siblings or grandparents, cook meals, work in a family business, or provide translation assistance.

Reading – this activity is especially helpful in UK admissions, where universities expect you to go beyond the classroom to understand your subject. However, colleges worldwide love readers. Harvard and Columbia even ask about what you’ve been reading for pleasure or academic enrichment in their supplemental essay.

This list is not exhaustive, but it demonstrates the wide range of activities from which you can identify meaningful pursuits that suit you. The key is to do activities that complement your interests; for example, it is great to complete the Duke of Edinburgh awards if you love orienteering and trekking outdoors with your friends. If you don’t, then you can take part in service and skills development activities in other ways.

In your UK personal statement or European letter of motivation, you will describe any activities that relate to your course – leaving out your virtuoso trombone playing unless your achievements show valuable time-management skills or you are applying for a music degree. For the US and Canada, some of your essays will reflect how you’ve spent your time; for example, an extracurricular essay is required by Georgetown and Purdue. The classic “why us” or “why your major” essay is also an excellent opportunity to show the overlap between your extracurricular accomplishments and a university’s offerings. However, for nearly all US universities and Canadian schools like Waterloo and UBC, you must also present an ‘activity list.’

How to create a fantastic activity list

The Activity List on Common App challenges students to share the ways they spend their time and talents in a concise way that is nonetheless engaging, impressive, and revealing. Here is what you need to know:

• Number of activities: You can list up to ten; however, presenting less is absolutely fine as long as you show that you participated in a significant way.

• Variety is helpful: it would be boring to list six online coding courses, soccer club, and the gym on your activity list. US colleges appreciate well-roundedness in students. So if you are a track star who loves to debate, dive into data, and play the flute, let them know!

• Order is important. Put the activities that best reflect your values and how you have invested your time at the top. An exciting internship or research experience related to your major should also go at or near the top.

• Be succinct but clear. You only have 150 characters (about 26 words!) to describe your involvement and accomplishments. You need not write in complete sentences – use your precious characters well with resume-style descriptions led by active verbs. Avoid acronyms and abbreviations unless the term is widely known by all.

• Impact matters. Your descriptions should show tangible achievements rather than simply saying you ‘observed’ or ‘attended.’ Better verbs would be designed, researched, generated, presented, or evaluated. Quantify wherever possible.

• Continuity also matters to admissions officers. You must show the years you took part between 9th and 12th grade; most activities before 9th grade won’t interest colleges much and would have to be shown in the additional information section. If you find a club you like, it’s best to stick with it, ideally obtaining a leadership role in 11th/12th grade.

• Depth of commitment must be shown via the hours of involvement per week and the number of weeks per year. For example, you can’t learn or achieve much in a one-day internship, so opt for an entire week – and ideally more.

The crucial words above are impact and commitment. Did your extracurricular activity extend beyond your school or your city? If so, admissions officers could see you as an ambitious student who shows initiative. Did you help solve a problem or address an issue, even in a small way? That indicates that you are a passionate changemaker. Did you involve others in your project? This suggests that you are collaborative and eager to share your vision. Did you invest a significant amount of time in hours and years on the activity? If you can excel in academics alongside your other projects, this shows you will be able to manage the demanding workload at university.

Finally, your activities matter because you only have one life to live. Students need these pursuits to be memorable to colleges, but a good activity list should represent your genuine interests. So choose your extracurriculars wisely – use them to act on your curiosity in the early years of high school. Then, they will help you to deepen your passions and display leadership and intellectual vitality as you get older. This way, you will create an ever-evolving list that is all you.