How to Approach Extracurriculars for College Admissions
One of the biggest areas of the college admissions process that sparks the most questions – and often the most misconceptions – among parents and students is how to approach extracurriculars. We’ve heard assumptions like, “I need to fill all 10 activity spots on the Common App,” “It’s too late to get involved because I didn’t start in ninth grade,” or “I won’t be able to get into Yale or Harvard without a leadership position.” While it certainly would be impressive if you won a Nobel Peace Prize while leading a national debate team since the beginning of high school, standing out through your extracurriculars doesn't have to be as difficult as it sounds.
Why are we qualified to talk about this?
Candice and I were both accepted early to Yale– we had very different extracurricular profiles but our applications stood out for similar reasons, which we will break down in this guide. We’ve also helped students, including those without “standout” extracurriculars, get into Ivy League and other top 20 schools by helping them choose meaningful extracurriculars (even as juniors and seniors!) and put together applications that highlight their unique strengths. If you’re looking for personalized guidance to build a compelling extracurricular profile and maximize your chances of admission, explore our college counseling service.
Now, let’s jump into demystifying extracurriculars and talk about actionable ways for you to stand out in the college admissions process.
Part I: The Role of Extracurriculars in College Admissions
The truth is the number of applicants with top grades and high SAT scores far exceeds the number of available spots at top colleges. Moreover, colleges are not interested in accepting applicants purely based on their academic ability – they would also like to understand how you spend your time outside of the classroom. Extracurriculars are one of the main ways for colleges to gain perspective into who you are as a person today and who you might be on campus in the future.
Extracurriculars are any activity that you commit time to outside of your school work, including school organizations, athletics, jobs or internships (paid or unpaid), community service, independent projects, and even familial responsibilities, such as taking care of a sick family member. Admissions officers recognize that not every student has the same access to resources, and familial responsibilities can equally demonstrate a student’s maturity and initiative. Extracurriculars are especially important at more selective schools that place a great emphasis on building vibrant student communities made up of diverse skills, perspectives, and experiences.
That said, this doesn’t mean you should focus on your extracurriculars at the expense of your grades. While there are rare cases where exceptional extracurricular achievements can offset weaker academics, for most applicants, strong grades provide the foundation of a competitive application, and extracurriculars add the individuality and personality that brings your application to life.
Part II: What Colleges Are Looking For in Your Extracurriculars
Even though the Common App gives you up to 10 spots to list extracurriculars, colleges do not expect you to fill every one. Most students we’ve worked with who were admitted to highly selective colleges included anywhere between 5 to 10. The key takeaway is admissions officers are less concerned with quantity than quality. If juggling 10 activities means that you are spreading yourself too thin and are unable to make a meaningful impact in any of them, this can significantly weaken your application and even increase your risk for burnout.
Rather than focusing on quantity, there are five key qualities that you want to make sure you are demonstrating across your extracurricular profile.
1. Impact: Impact is the most important quality you want to show through your extracurriculars. Colleges want to see that your efforts actually make a difference because they are looking for students who can contribute meaningfully to their campus community and beyond. They aren’t just interested in how busy you are – they want to know what you achieve with your time.
2. Commitment: Long-term involvement in an activity shows colleges that it truly matters to you. For example, being part of the school newspaper for several years tells admissions officers far more about what matters to you than briefly joining three different clubs in junior year. Remember, familial responsibilities count as extracurriculars as well – helping with your family’s business all throughout high school also demonstrates commitment. Commitment reflects your ability to follow through, persevere, and invest deeply in what you care about.
3. Growth: High school and college are both times of significant growth, and colleges want to see evidence that you can expand your skills and take on increasing responsibility over time. Growth often goes hand in hand with commitment – by sticking with an activity for multiple years, you can build your abilities, take on leadership roles, and show clear improvement.
4. Passion: Passion is the excitement, curiosity, and intrinsic motivation that drives a student to do more than what’s required. Colleges love passionate students because they are more likely to engage deeply, persevere through challenges, and make meaningful contributions to their campus community. Passion is demonstrated by the time, effort, and initiative you bring to an activity, whether it’s honing a skill over several years, pursuing a subject independently outside of the classroom, or starting a project from scratch.
5. Versatility: Versatility is the ability to engage meaningfully across multiple domains. It reflects adaptability, intellectual curiosity, and the capacity to thrive in diverse environments – qualities that suggest you will make the most of the dynamic opportunities a college campus offers. While you may dedicate most of your time to one or two primary activities, a truly compelling extracurricular profile should also show involvement in different domains, proving you can balance multiple passions and responsibilities.
These activities might complement each other, highlighting different dimensions of your skills. For instance, you could be an award-winning musician who also starts a school organization to coordinate volunteer performances at hospitals, combining artistic excellence with leadership and service. Or your pursuits might be completely unrelated, such as writing scripts for theater productions while competing in chess tournaments, showcasing creativity and analytical thinking simultaneously. By blending distinct interests and achievements, you set yourself apart from the hundreds of other award-winning musicians or playwrights – making your profile both memorable and distinctive.
Part III: How to Build a Strong Extracurricular Profile
Building a strong extracurricular profile is a gradual process that benefits from early planning and intentionality. The earlier you begin, the more time you have to explore, commit, and make a greater impact.
Based on the patterns we’ve seen in strong student applications, a strong extracurricular profile typically includes:
1-3 core activities: Core activities are activities where you have demonstrated significant impact and growth. They involve high levels of responsibility, leadership, initiative, commitment, and/or outstanding achievements, and are what allow you to stand out from other applicants. For example, this can include being student council president, starting a school organization, winning national competitions as a chess player, or publishing your research in notable journals. Making a truly meaningful impact requires sustained time and energy, so we recommend focusing deeply on 1–3 core activities to help you better demonstrate your highest level of achievement and growth in each.
3-5 supporting activities: Supporting activities are ongoing commitments where you have demonstrated some level of meaningful impact and growth, but perhaps with lower levels of responsibility, leadership, initiative, or achievements. For example, this can include serving as vice president of your school’s Key Club, president of a small 10 person club, volunteering consistently at a local organization, doing a science research summer program, or working in your family business. While these activities may not be the ones that make you stand out the most, they complement your core activities and help showcase a broader range of skills and interests.
Few or no passive activities: Passive activities are activities where you participate without taking on leadership, significant responsibility, or measurable impact. Examples include attending a weekly club without taking an active role or occasional volunteering at community events. These activities require low effort and show very little about who you are, so having too many of them can weaken your profile. If you choose to include one, it should reflect genuine personal interest or connect to your broader story, not serve as filler.
Freshman year is the perfect time to start building up your extracurricular profile. Reflect on your interests: Is there a school subject that you love, a cause you care deeply about, or an activity you can see yourself investing significant time and energy in over multiple years? Then, think about how you can turn these interests into meaningful extracurricular involvement: are there opportunities at school, in your community, or online that allow you to pursue this interest in a way that not only demonstrates passion but also growth, commitment, or impact? Don’t be afraid to try out different things. Your goal is to experiment broadly and discover the activities where you feel most engaged.
By sophomore year, you should narrow down your focus. Choose a few activities that genuinely resonate with you and have the potential to become core commitments – and back away from the passive activities that you aren’t as interested in (or that you don’t think you can make a difference in). Start investing more time and energy, take on greater responsibilities, and look for opportunities to make a measurable impact. This is also a good time to consider launching your own passion projects or initiatives. Sophomore year is about demonstrating consistency and initiative and laying the foundation for greater leadership and achievements in your upperclassman years.
Junior and senior years should be primarily focused on developing and excelling in your 1–3 core activities and 3-5 supporting activities, and minimizing your passive activities. If you already have a well-balanced extracurricular profile, continue to do what you are doing, and look for additional opportunities to take on greater responsibility, lead new initiatives, or deepen your contributions.
If your overall profile does not yet reflect this balance yet, consider: Can you elevate any supporting activities into core commitments? Are there ways to engage more deeply in your passive activities to demonstrate impact, passion, commitment, or growth? For example, if you are currently consistently volunteering at a food bank every week, can you take on a leadership role, organize a new initiative, or train new volunteers?
If your current list of activities is limited in opportunities, it may be beneficial to take a look at new opportunities that will allow you to show more significant impact within the remaining time.
Part IV: Extracurricular Ideas and Examples
When thinking about what extracurriculars to partake in, it’s important to recognize that some activities are more competitive than others. For instance, many students play piano or a sport. While these are great activities, to make them stand out in your profile as your core activities, you should consider your ability to take it to the next level before the application deadline, either through leadership, awards, competitions, or other activities. For example, you might compose music or coach younger players.
Whether you are a freshman looking to explore new extracurriculars or a junior looking for new opportunities to show more significant impact, below are some good extracurricular ideas and examples to help you brainstorm:
1. Passion Projects
A passion project is an excellent extracurricular activity because it demonstrates initiative, creativity, leadership, and genuine passion for a specific cause or interest. It allows you to create something of your own and engage others with similar interests, while also showing colleges that you can take a project from concept to execution.
To build a passion project, start by reflecting on your interests and the causes you care most about. Consider if there’s a club you wish existed, a problem you want to solve, or a skill you want to develop. For example, if you love gaming, which alone doesn’t qualify as an extracurricular, you can take that interest to the next level by learning to code and developing your own game.
Passion projects are particularly valuable for adding higher-level leadership experience to your extracurricular profile, especially if you haven’t yet held formal leadership positions by junior or senior year. However, because anyone can easily start a passion project, keep in mind that impact is extremely important here. Simply launching a blog or project without engagement or measurable results won’t impress admissions officers. In fact, they can easily tell when a project is done just to pad an application rather than out of genuine interest, and this can significantly hurt your application.
The best way to create meaningful impact is to involve others—whether that means forming a team, reaching a wide audience, helping your community, or creating a product or service that people actually use. Once you achieve real results, you can even submit your project for awards, which further boosts your credibility.
At NexTier Prep, we help students develop authentic passion projects that reflect their true interests while demonstrating leadership and impact. If you’re interested, check out our college consulting services.
Examples:
Start a new school club
Start a non-profit initiative/charity
Start a magazine in school or online
Start a blog
Start a YouTube channel
Start a podcast
Develop an app
Develop a website
Produce and direct a short film or theater production
Launch a business
2. Leadership
Taking on a leadership role is one of the most effective ways to take any activity to the next level. Taking on leadership shows initiative, responsibility, and the ability to inspire others. Look for opportunities to lead in both your school clubs and outside activities. Leadership often requires a significant investment of time and energy, so the best way to prepare for leadership is to choose a cause or activity you genuinely enjoy. Once you’ve found something meaningful, commit to it consistently over time, focus on contributing in real and tangible ways, and build trust within your team or community. By showing initiative and impact early on, even before you have an official leadership position, you’ll naturally set yourself up to be chosen for formal leadership roles later.
Examples:
School clubs: President, Vice President, Treasurer, Secretary, Event Coordinator
Athletics: Captain, Student Coach
Arts, Music, and Theater: Orchestra section leader, School play director, Lead Actor, Student Conductor, Lead choreographer
School publications: Editor in chief, news editor, features editor, sports editor, publisher
Student Council
Start your own club
Build a passion project
Remember, leadership is not just about holding a title – even if you don’t hold a formal leadership title by junior or senior year, you can still demonstrate leadership by growing your responsibilities within your existing extracurriculars. For example, mentoring new members, organizing events, launching new initiatives or projects, or helping shape the direction of a group are all examples of leadership in action.
3. Part-time Jobs and Internships (Paid and Unpaid)
Part-time jobs and internships, both paid and unpaid, are great ways to demonstrate responsibility, initiative, and time management. When looking for part-time jobs and internships, consider opportunities in your interested field of study, but also keep your mind open to any opportunities that will allow you to hone your general professional skills.
Start by reaching out to your network, including your family, friends, teachers, guidance counselors, for potential opportunities. Additionally, look within your local community – organizations, like hospitals, libraries, or museums, often offer formal internships for high schoolers. Even if you don’t see an active opportunity, if you find an organization you are particularly interested in, send them an email to let them know of your interest. Leverage job-search websites like LinkedIn or Chegg Internship to look more broadly as well.
For students specifically interested in STEM, look into research being conducted at local universities and consider emailing professors whose research you are interested in. There are also many science research programs offered in the summer, such as MITES (MIT), Stanford Institutes of Medicine Summer Research Program (SIMR), or Simons Summer Research Program. Note that many science research programs are not free, and the ones that are paid are often not as selective nor impressive to college admissions officers.
4. Arts, Music, and Theater
Arts, music, and theater are powerful ways to showcase your creativity and talents, whether through painting, playing the harp, or acting. Many universities are actively looking for students who engage in artistic endeavors, as they bring unique perspectives and enrich campus life.
While anyone can get involved in the arts, some activities, like learning the piano, typically require years of practice to develop strong skills. Starting to learn piano in your junior year with the goal of adding it to your extracurricular list is unlikely to make a meaningful impact on your college application, especially since many students already play instruments. Even years of practice alone may not impress admissions officers.
To make a significant impact with competitive arts activities, you typically need to reach a higher level of achievement, such as earning awards, performing in competitions, taking on leadership roles, or producing original work. You can also take initiative by teaching younger students, organizing volunteer performances for senior citizens or hospitals, or hosting community art or music events. These efforts transform a passive activity into an impactful and distinctive extracurricular.
The good news is there are also ways to get involved in the arts that don’t require years of prior experience.
Examples:
Join the music groups at school or in your local community: Orchestra, Jazz band, Choir, Small ensembles (Trio, Quartet)
Join music, art, or theater clubs at school: Songwriting club, Music production club, Photography club, Graphic design club, Drama club, Improv club
Get involved with school or community theater productions: Act, Sing or play an instrument, Dance, Write plays, Direct, Join set/tech/costume design, Design posters
Volunteer or get a paid or unpaid part-time job/internship
Play music at senior homes, hospital, or other community spaces
Put on theater shows at senior homes, hospital, or community spaces
Teach music, arts, or theater to younger students
Create art for local organizations: murals, banners, community beautification projects
Work at an art museum or galleryStart your own club in school
Start your own club in school
Start a passion project
Compose music
Share your music via Youtube
Start an arts magazine or newsletter
Organize events in your school or community: open mics, community concerts, recitals
Join summer camps or workshops
Create art or take photographs for school newspapers, magazines, or yearbook
Create art or take photographs for student events
Participate in regional or national music or art shows/competitions, like Scholastic Art & Writing Awards
5. Writing
Regardless of whether your interests lie in science, math, or the arts, strong writing abilities are essential for success in college and beyond. Being able to communicate ideas clearly and present arguments effectively makes you stand out as a student. As a result, at NexTier Prep, we encourage all of our students to explore writing beyond the classroom.
One important note: if you are currently struggling with English in school, diving straight into certain writing extracurriculars, such as starting a creative writing blog, without first building a strong academic foundation may appear inconsistent to admissions officers. Instead, you can begin with activities like joining a book club or creative writing club to gradually improve your skills. Once your grades better reflect your abilities, participating in writing extracurriculars will feel more authentic.
For additional support, we offer a writing program taught by coaches, who have won awards themselves, to help students become strong writers across all disciplines, whether in academic or creative writing.
Examples:
Write for school publications
Newspapers
Literary magazine
Science magazine
Arts magazine
Join a reading/writing club
Creative writing club
Journalism club
Book club
Write plays for school theater production
Start a blog or personal website to share your writing
Start your own reading/writing club
Organize or participate in open mic events
Participate in local, national, and international writing contests, like Scholastic Art & Writing Awards
Become a writing tutor/mentor
Publish your writing
6. Athletics
Playing a sport can be a fantastic extracurricular activity, even if you’re not aiming to compete at the collegiate level. Participation in athletics demonstrates important qualities like discipline, perseverance, and teamwork.
However, because many students join sports teams, it can be challenging to stand out. A single semester on a team is unlikely to impress admissions officers; instead, sustained commitment over multiple seasons is what makes athletics meaningful on a college application. While you don’t necessarily need to be the star player or team captain, you should consistently show up to practice and contribute to your team’s success in meaningful ways. Even taking on smaller roles, like helping organize practices or mentoring newer players, can demonstrate dedication, responsibility, and leadership.
Examples:
School varsity or junior varsity teams: Check your school’s offerings to see which teams are available.
Community sports teams/clubs
Run clubs
Soccer clubs
Basketball leagues
Volleyball clubs
Recreational sports (given you have achieved a level of excellence in them)
Rock climbing
Skiing
Equestrian
Competitive Athletics
Gymnastic competitions
Martial arts competitions
Dance competitions
Starting projects or initiatives within your team
Charity projects
Organizing community outreach events
7. Community Service
Community service is one of the most accessible extracurriculars that allow students the chance to make a tangible difference in their communities. Many high schools require students to complete a certain number of service hours before graduation, so this can be a great opportunity to turn a requirement into a meaningful, long-term commitment.
Colleges value community service because it reveals a lot about the causes you care about and reflects the kind of engaged, responsible, and compassionate student you are likely to be on campus. Regardless of the type of service you choose, consistency is key. Regular, long-term involvement demonstrates dedication, initiative, and a willingness to contribute meaningfully to a larger community and can better set you up for future leadership opportunities.
Examples:
Join school community service clubs: Check your school’s offerings to see which clubs focus on service, such as Key Club, Red Cross Club, or tutoring programs.
Volunteer with local organizations
Food banks
Senior centers
Animal shelters
Mentoring/tutoring programs
Community gardens
Environmental cleanups
Hospitals and clinics
Community centers
Start your own community service organization in school or in your community
8. Science Research
Taking part in some form of science research or engagement – whether helping out at a lab or enrolling in a summer science research program – can showcase your intense dedication and passion for the sciences. This allows you to further highlight your unique interest in a specific scientific focus – for example, AIDS research or marine biology.
Try reaching out to your science teachers first to see if they have any connections to labs or local university professors. If not, try your hand at emailing nearby professors or labs to see if they have any positions available for high school students. Another viable option is to become a science teacher or mentor for local science museums or community centers that host STEM-focused summer camps for kids. You can also apply to summer science research programs (as mentioned in Part-time Jobs and Internships).
Examples:
Volunteer or work in a local university science lab – as a lab assistant, research assistant, researcher
Work as a camp counselor/mentor/teacher at a science museum (or zoo, aquarium, or community center) that offers STEM-focused summer camps for kids
Shadow a professor or researcher
Engage in summer research programs like Research Science Institute at MIT or Rockefeller University Summer Science Research Program.
9. Competitive Clubs
Competitive clubs give you the chance to challenge yourself, develop your skills, and compete against others, naturally encouraging deeper participation. This kind of involvement gives you the opportunity to attain measurable achievements, such as awards or recognitions, that can make your extracurricular profile stand out.
Again, a lot of students are in competitive clubs, so avoid being a passive member who only shows up to meetings – instead, actively participate, take initiative, and seek ways to contribute meaningfully to your team’s success.
Examples:
Debate
Model UN
Robotics
Math team
Science Olympiad
Quiz Bowl
Chess Club
Parting Thoughts
Extracurricular activities are opportunities to showcase who you are beyond your grades and test scores. There is no right answer to what extracurriculars you should do, but a strong extracurricular profile should demonstrate the key qualities colleges are looking for: impact, commitment, growth, passion, and versatility. And it should give a unique portrait of who you are outside of the classroom – where your passions lie, and how you’ll contribute to campus life in the future.
When you’ve invested time in activities that reflect your passions and values, you’ll also have authentic stories to share when it’s time to write your college essays. Think about the story that you want your extracurriculars to tell about you. Are you an avid hip-hop dancer, who cares deeply about your community and volunteers to teach children how to dance? Or maybe a musician fascinated by neuroscience and researches the impacts of music on memory?
