How Many Extracurriculars Do You Need for College?
Seven sign-up sheets
It is September of 10th grade, and a student is walking through his school's club fair. A classmate has told him that the college application has ten spaces for activities, so colleges must want to see ten.
He signs up for seven clubs in twenty minutes. By November he is going to two of them. The other five have become a source of guilt, and he is wondering whether to go back just so he can list them.
Is there a number?
There is a maximum, and there is no minimum.
The ten spaces are real. The Common App, one of the most widely used college applications, lets a student add up to ten activities. But its own guide says that this "doesn't mean that you need to enter ten", and it tells students to focus on which activities tell their story best "and not on the number you're reporting."
Colleges say the same.
- Stanford says exceptional depth in one or two activities may show more than minimal participation in five or six clubs.
- MIT says: "We don't expect applicants to do a million things. Choose quality over quantity."
So ten is a limit on the form. It is not a target, and no admissions office we have found publishes a number it wants to see.
Count hours, not activities
A more useful question than "how many?" is "how much time does each one get?"
An activity needs regular hours before a student can take on responsibility in it or produce a result. A club attended twice a semester will not get there. As a rule of thumb, most students can give that kind of time to two, three or four things at once alongside their schoolwork. This is our own guideline, and the right number depends on the student and the activities.
The list on the application is usually longer than that, and this confuses families. The form covers all four years. It also includes jobs, family responsibilities and summer activities. A student who does three things at a time can honestly end up with six or seven entries by 12th grade, because some activities ended and others began.
How to decide what stays
For each activity, ask three questions.
- Would I miss it if it ended tomorrow? If the honest answer is no, that is useful to know.
- Is anything different there because of me, or could it be within a year? This is where responsibility and results come from.
- Does it get enough hours to grow? If not, could it, by letting something else go?
Here is how the student from the club fair might sort his list. He also has a Saturday job at his uncle's tire shop, which he had not thought to count.
| Activity | Hours a week | His answers | Decision |
|---|---|---|---|
| Robotics team | 6 | He would miss it, and he wants to learn the wiring | Keep, and go deeper |
| Saturday job at the tire shop | 7 | His uncle relies on him to handle the phone and the schedule | Keep, and count it |
| Jazz band | 3 | He would miss it. He has no plans to lead it | Keep, for enjoyment |
| Coding club | 1 | It overlaps with robotics | Let go, and put the hour into robotics |
| Chess club, Model UN, environmental club, yearbook | Under 1 each | He went once or twice and would not miss them | Let go |
He finishes with three activities instead of eight. Each one has enough time, and two of them have room for him to take on more.
Three common questions
Is it fine to quit an activity? Yes. Trying things in 9th grade and narrowing down in 10th is how most students find what fits. It is better to leave a club than to stay as a name on a list.
Is one activity enough? It can be, if it takes real time and the student has grown in it. Stanford's own wording allows for depth in "one or two".
Can I keep something just because I enjoy it? Yes. An activity does not have to lead anywhere, and it still says something true about the student.
How Pursiva helps
Sorting a list like this is hard to do alone, because every activity feels like one that might matter.
Pursiva's Activities module keeps a record of each activity with the hours it takes, so the family can see where the student's week goes. It then helps the student choose. Using the student's theme (Pursiva calls it a Core Narrative), it shows which activities support the story the application will tell, suggests where to go deeper, and points out what could be dropped without loss. Jobs and family responsibilities are included from the start.
The student at the club fair did not need ten activities. He needed to notice that he already had three good ones.
Sources
Find out which of your activities matter most.
$49.90 a month, every module included. Cancel anytime.
Get started