Episode 7: Extracurricular Activities for College Admissions
Podcast Description:
How many extracurricular activities do colleges want to see? Probably not as many as families think.
In Episode 7 of Drop In, Josh and Lisa explain what colleges actually look for in extracurricular activities and why initiative, depth, impact, and authentic interest matter far more than a packed résumé.
They discuss how students can find their “jam,” explore interests without feeling locked into every activity forever, and move from simply joining a group to making it better. They also break down how to write a Common App activities section that shows meaningful involvement, including the verbs, numbers, and specific results that help an admissions officer understand what a student actually contributed.
You’ll learn:
Why colleges evaluate the student behind the activity
What initiative, depth, and impact look like in practice
Why outside-of-school interests, jobs, family responsibilities, and independent projects count
Why students should be allowed to try an activity and decide it is not for them
How to use strong verbs and measurable results in activity descriptions
Why different colleges may respond to different forms of involvement
How ordinary-sounding experiences can reveal the most about a student
The bottom line is simple: students do not need to collect activities. They need to pursue what genuinely interests them, find ways to contribute, and communicate those experiences honestly. As we explain in Extracurricular Activities for College Admissions: Why Depth Beats Breadth, a few meaningful commitments will almost always tell a stronger story than a long list built to impress.
Students who are still exploring may also enjoy The Students Who Thrive Are the Curious Ones. And because an experience that does not stick can still reveal something meaningful, Episode 4 explores how to write a college essay with an authentic student voice.
Want Josh and Lisa to help your student find meaningful ways to get involved, build on genuine interests, and present those experiences effectively? Explore our freshman and sophomore planning, junior-year college planning, and senior application support, or schedule a free initial consultation.
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#CollegeApplicationTips #Parenting #TeenDevelopment #AuthenticStorytelling #CollegeAdmissions #RaisingKids #ExtracurricularActivities #ParentingPodcast #CommonApp #DecisionDrop #DropInPodcast
Chapters
0:00 Intro
0:40 The Myth of the Packed Activity List
1:53 What Colleges Actually Look For
2:35 Initiative, Depth, and Impact
4:15 Finding “Your Jam”
5:43 Why It Is Okay to Try and Quit Activities
7:37 The Activity Is Not the Story
8:20 Writing the Common App Activities Section
9:00 Strong Verbs and Specific Results
9:45 Why Students Should Use Numbers
10:58 How Different Colleges Evaluate Involvement
11:33 University of Michigan: Leadership and Initiative
11:58 Dartmouth: Community Contribution
13:50 Duke: Leadership, Research, and Impact
15:22 Hot Takes and Hard Truths
17:03 Why Ordinary Activities Can Be Powerful
18:00 The Student Behind the Activity
19:17 Are You Just a Member or Making It Better?
20:39 Next Week: Recommendation Letters
21:35 How Decision Drop Can Help
▼ Read Full Transcript
Josh: Every week we drop the noise.
Lisa: Drop the stress.
Josh: And drop some knowledge.
Lisa: Welcome to Drop In, the College Admissions Podcast by Decision Drop. If you want to learn more about our services or have Josh and me guide you and your family through this process personally, head over to decisiondrop.com and check us out.
Josh: I'm Josh.
Lisa: I'm Lisa. Let's go.
Josh: All right, Lisa. Episode seven. Somebody keeps letting us back in the studio, so we're going to keep doing this. Today's topic is one we promised to cover at the end of last week's episode.
Lisa: Right, extracurricular activities. Ooh, I have been waiting for this episode because families, I think, have been sold a whole story about activities that is just not true.
Josh: Yeah, and that story is: do everything, list everything, and the longer the activity list, the better.
Lisa: Right. Pack your schedule with clubs, collect a few leadership titles, and hope the length of that list matters more than what you actually did.
Josh: Yeah, and unfortunately, guys, colleges can see right through all of that. Here is the thing we need families to understand: colleges are not evaluating the activity. They are evaluating the student behind that activity.
Lisa: Honestly, that sentence, Josh, could be the entire episode. But I guess we did promise a 25-ish-minute, not seven-minute, podcast. I think in this one, it is going to be best if we can give examples and explain what we actually mean.
Josh: Point of fact, we actually did not make any promises about the length of the episode, so we could actually end it here. But since, again, we are in the studio, we should probably take some time to get into it.
Lisa: It's true.
Josh: All right. We are going to start with the single biggest mindset shift because everything else we talk about is going to flow from there. Colleges are not asking, “What did this student do?” They are asking, “What will this student do on our campus?” Your activities are the evidence they use to predict that.
Lisa: When an admissions officer looks at your activity list, they are not counting. They are not going, “This kiddo has eleven activities, so that definitely beats this kiddo over here because they only have seven.” That is not how this works. They are looking for evidence of three things: initiative, depth, and impact.
Josh: That is super important, Lisa. Just to make sure, since everyone is carefully listening, can you repeat that one more time? Because that is really the backbone of our entire conversation today.
Lisa: I sure can. We have initiative, depth, and impact, which I think you will be hearing a lot in this podcast. Did you start something, or did you just show up? Did you stick with something long enough to get good at it and then grow? And did your being there actually change anything?
Josh: This matters even more at highly selective schools. When you get into the most competitive schools in the country, everyone applying has good grades and good scores. That is the baseline. It is not a differentiator.
Lisa: Oh my gosh, so true. What separates a student at that level? The most selective colleges are often looking for that self-directed student connected to a real interest and tied to an actual result.
Self-directed means nobody had to chase you down to tell you how to do it. Connected to a real interest means you actually care about it. I know, shocker. It is not just sitting there looking pretty on your résumé. An actual result means something happened because you showed up.
Josh: As an added bonus, if that thing happens outside of school, all the better. Not because in-school activities do not count. They absolutely do, so I want to make sure everyone hears that. I am not poo-pooing in-school activities.
But something you pursued outside the walls of your school, on your own time, with no teacher assigning it to you and no grade attached to it, is some of the strongest possible evidence of genuine interest and initiative on the student's part.
Lisa: Right, because if you think about it, it shows that you did it because you wanted to. Not because it was required and not because it looked good, but because you actually cared.
Josh: The natural question every student is asking right now is, “Okay, what should I be doing?”
Lisa: I want to answer this in the least college-counselor way possible. What I ask students when they are contemplating what they should put down is, “What's your jam?”
Josh: You know I am going to make a plug here for sound effects and music because this would be a perfect place to insert, you know, “jam,” but performed by somebody who does it a lot better than me.
Lisa: Shocker.
Josh: You know, “jammm,” that sort of thing.
Lisa: Maybe, Josh, you should make these sound effects, and then I can invite you to edit the podcast, and you can edit those sound effects in. What do you think?
Josh: I will take it under advisement.
Lisa: I will put it on my list. Okay, so what do I mean by “What's your jam?” I know I have a lot of Lisa-isms. What do you actually like doing?
What makes you happy? What can you spend three hours doing and then realize you just spent three hours doing it? That is truly where this all starts. Not with, “Oh my gosh, what is going to impress Harvard?” Start with, “What do I care enough about to keep doing when nobody is watching?” That is what you need to find, and then you need to find ways to go deeper.
Josh: If you can tie that genuine interest to your intended major, that is a win-win.
Lisa: Win-win.
Josh: Now your activities and your academic direction are telling the same story about who you are, and that is a powerful, strategic, coherent application.
Lisa: I do want to say this very loudly for the students in the back: it is completely okay to try something and then decide that you do not like it. I say this all the time, including to adults. You do not know what you do not know. How do you know whether you like it if you do not try it?
Josh: Exactly. Lisa, we are going to take a second to unpack that because I think a lot of students have some anxiety about this.
Lisa: Oh my gosh, you are right. They do. Students think every activity they try has to become a five-year commitment that ends with a leadership title, a national award, and maybe a documentary. It does not.
How are you supposed to know whether you like it unless you try it? You do not know what you do not know. I am going to circle back to that. Say it again: you do not know what you do not know.
Maybe you joined the robotics team thinking it would become your whole personality, and then three months in, you realized you would rather do literally anything else. That does not mean it was a failure. It means it was information. You learned something real about yourself, and that is actually what matters.
Josh: Exactly. Colleges, and frankly life in general, value that willingness to try. The student who explored, took a risk, found out something was not for them, and moved toward what actually fit is a student demonstrating the ability to grow.
Lisa: Right, and here is a little secret. Sometimes the thing you tried and did not like becomes the best essay or supplemental essay you could write.
Maybe that robotics season taught you that you are actually happier collaborating than competing. Or debate club showed you that you care more about listening than winning. Even the experience that does not stick with you can reveal something worth writing about. No experience is wasted if you are going to pay attention.
Josh: Lisa, that is a great point. Let us get tactical because this is the part that is not talked about enough, and it might be the most important thing we discuss today. The activity itself is not what impresses a college. It is how you write about it.
Lisa: Oh my gosh, Josh, yes. This is so real. We have seen students do genuinely incredible things and then write about them in a way that makes them sound painfully boring.
Then we have students who take an activity that sounds ordinary on paper and describe it in a way that makes you immediately understand who they are. That is the difference. It is not the activity. The difference is the story and how they tell about their role in it.
Josh: Let us talk about the Common App activities section specifically because you have very little space and every word counts. You basically get about 150 characters per activity description. That is it. It is not a paragraph. It is barely two sentences.
Lisa: Right. You cannot waste a single word revisiting and restating the obvious. If your activity is varsity baseball team, which, side note, we would never want you to state quite that obviously, do not use your precious characters writing, “I played baseball on the varsity baseball team.” We know. It says baseball.
Tell us what we cannot see.
Josh: Here is a framework for what to write. We recommend that students ask themselves three questions about every activity. Did you lead? Did you solve a problem? Did you mentor younger students?
Some other questions: Did you grow the membership? Did you start something that did not exist before you got there?
Lisa: Those are the verbs that matter: led, solved, built, grew, mentored, organized, founded. Not “participated in,” “was a member of,” or “helped with.” Those passive phrases tell an admissions officer nothing about you.
Wherever you possibly can, use numbers. We tell students this every day. Data is your best friend because numbers show impact in a way that an adjective never will.
Josh: That is a huge point. Students, do not say you grew the club. Say you grew membership from eight students to 45 over two years.
Do not say you raised money for charity. Say you organized a fundraiser that brought in more than $3,200 for the local food bank.
Do not say you tutored kids. Say you mentored six younger students weekly and watched three of them raise their math grades by a full letter.
The numbers do the bragging so you do not have to. They make the impact concrete and believable instead of vague and forgettable.
Lisa: And by the way, tutoring kids and they gained a whole letter grade? I love that.
Josh: That is big time.
Lisa: Think about it this way. Underneath every number is the question colleges really care about: How did you grow? What did you learn? What changed because of your experience?
The number is the evidence. The growth is the story.
A student who can say, “I started with absolutely no idea what I was doing, and by the end, I had built something that continued after I left the school or club,” is showing something real. That is the student admissions officers are going to remember.
Josh: Exactly. Let us switch gears a little bit and talk about something many families do not realize. Different schools actually value different things.
While initiative, depth, and impact are universal, the specific flavor a school is looking for can vary. This ties directly back to what we said in Episode 5 about reading the mission statement for each school.
Lisa: First of all, I love that you did a callback to two episodes ago. Love that, Josh.
Number two, I think this is a great thing because we did this last week, and we received such positive comments about going through and giving concrete examples.
Josh: Let us start with the University of Michigan. Michigan is a huge, dynamic, complex place. What stands out there is leadership and initiative because they value students who can operate effectively in large, fast-moving environments.
If you show that you thrived in a big, busy setting and took the lead within it, that can resonate at a place like Michigan because it mirrors the kind of environment its campus actually is.
Lisa: I say this to families when they go on campus tours. When you are on a campus tour, look around. You may be one of 100 people at a school like Michigan, Texas, or Florida.
Even if you are in a tour group of 50, that is a good opportunity to talk to your kids about what a potentially average class size could feel like there. At a smaller school, there might be five or ten people on your tour. Again, that is a good opportunity to see what it could feel like to be in a classroom.
We have talked about a big school. Let us talk about Dartmouth. Dartmouth is smaller and is known for having that close-knit community.
They want students who will contribute meaningfully to that kind of environment. Someone who will show up for their classmates, show up for people, and make the community better.
Josh, what word do you think I am about to say? What word do we think is going to appear again?
Josh: Well, Lisa, since we talked about this before recording, I can safely say initiative.
Lisa: Initiative. Ding, ding, ding, ding. You are right. Again, it pops up every single time.
Dartmouth wants to see a student who can contribute meaningfully to a tight community. Someone who will take the initiative to show up for their classmates, show up for people, and make that community even better. Again, initiative that reflects the kind of environment Dartmouth actually is.
Josh: Students, notice what is happening here. Both schools reflect the kind of environment they are.
Michigan values operating in a large, dynamic setting because that is what Michigan is. Dartmouth values close community contribution because that is what Dartmouth is. The activities that resonate are the ones that show you will thrive in their specific environment.
Lisa: Absolutely. We have had Michigan. We have had Dartmouth. Let us give one more. How about Duke? What have you got?
Josh: Duke is a great third example because it is a combination. At Duke, you often see an emphasis on leadership, research, and community impact.
They want students who can lead others while also creating something tangible. Students who can operate at a high academic level and turn that into real-world impact in a community.
Lisa: Three schools, three different, or slightly different, flavors. But do you know what is underneath all three?
Josh: Yes, Lisa, I do. Again, we talked about this before we got on the air. Initiative. It keeps coming back.
Lisa: It keeps coming back every single time. It never goes away, y'all.
If you take nothing else tactical from this episode, whatever you do, show that you took ownership. You started something. You fixed something. You noticed a need and did something about it.
You did not just stand there in the group photo wearing the matching T-shirt. And you know how much I love matching T-shirts.
Josh: We are not getting matching T-shirts.
The way to figure out the specific flavor each school wants is the same advice we gave for supplements. Read the mission statement. Understand the environment. Then show them how who you already are fits into that specific community.
Lisa: Read the mission statement. Look, it goes back to it every time.
Josh: If we had some effects, we could have “Read the mission statement” bouncing across the screen, or maybe a ticker tape. Anyway.
Lisa: Or a T-shirt that says, “Read the mission statement.” Look, it can go both ways.
Josh: I like my idea better.
Anyway, Lisa, it is time for Hot Take or Hard Truth. Since you want to talk about T-shirts and stuff, why do you not go first?
Lisa: Okay, sure. Do not mind if I do.
Here is mine: A student with three activities they genuinely care about will almost always out-apply a student with 12 activities they joined just to pad that résumé.
Colleges are not handing out points based on how many club meetings you managed to sit through. They want to know where you invest your time, where you invest your energy, and where you invest in yourself.
Stop collecting activities. Start committing to the ones that actually matter to you.
That is a really good lesson to know now because colleges are going to consider how you will be on their campus. How are you going to fit into their community?
If you are involved in these activities here, you are probably going to be involved in those activities on their campus.
This is a side note, like Hot Take or Hard Truth subplot A: Use the directions on the Common App. When they ask you to put your activities in order of importance, put them in order of importance.
That is important because, again, it goes back to telling your story. Colleges will look at the order of your Common App activities, see what matters to you, and picture you on their campus participating in those same kinds of activities.
That is my hard truth and then my sub-hard truth. Sorry, I had two.
Josh: I will give you points for the first hot take because that was a pretty strong one. I was not aware that we were adding subplots or doing side quests on these.
Lisa: My bad. Next time.
Josh: You are changing things up midstream.
Here is my hot take: Students, the activity that looks least impressive on paper is often the one that reveals the most about you.
That part-time job at the grocery store. The care you give an aging grandparent every afternoon. The tiny online community you built around a niche interest nobody else at your school shares.
Admissions officers are not just looking for prestige. They are looking for evidence of a real human being who shows up, takes initiative, there is that word again, and cares about something.
Sometimes the most ordinary-sounding activity is the most revealing one in the entire application.
Lisa: And often the hardest-working one, right? A kiddo working 20 hours a week to help their family is demonstrating more grit and responsibility than a kid with a fancy title they were handed.
Josh: Exactly. That is a really good point.
Another transition. Drop the Mic time. Maybe we could have a microphone drop from the sky. Anyway, Lisa, Drop the Mic time. Take us home.
Lisa: Okay, let us see. I am never ready for this.
Here is what I want every family to remember: Stop asking, “What looks good to colleges?” Start asking, “What do I actually care about?”
The activity is not the whole story, y'all. The student behind the activity is.
Colleges are looking for initiative, depth, and impact. Those things usually grow from a genuine interest.
Find your jam and then go deeper. Try things, including things you may not end up loving, because you cannot know what fits until you give yourself permission to explore.
When it is time to write everything down, do not just tell a college what you did. Show them how you led, what you built, what you changed, what you grew, who you helped, and what you learned along the way.
For all the information we gave you today, use numbers. Y'all, use numbers. Be specific. Tell the truth.
The students who get remembered are not necessarily the ones with the longest lists. They are the ones whose lists tell us something real about the person behind them.
Josh: That is a good one.
Lisa: Thank you.
Josh: My final thought for students this week is to look at whatever you are involved in right now and ask yourself a simple question: “Am I simply a member, or am I making this experience better?”
Lisa: Mm-hmm.
Josh: Joining an activity is really just the beginning. You do not need to be the president, captain, or founder to have an impact.
Maybe you welcome the new student who does not know anybody. Maybe you suggest a better way to organize something, take responsibility when nobody else volunteers, or help the group reach people it was not reaching before.
My final thought for students this week is to look at whatever you are involved in right now and ask yourself one question: “Am I simply a member, or am I making this experience better?”
Joining an activity is only the beginning. You do not need to be the president, captain, or founder to make an impact.
Maybe you welcome the new student who does not know anyone. Maybe you suggest a better way to organize something, take responsibility when nobody else volunteers, or help the group reach people it was not reaching before.
That difference between simply showing up and finding a way to contribute is exactly what colleges are trying to understand.
They want to see how you participate in a community and what changes because you are part of it. The gap between showing up and making something better is exactly the gap colleges are reading for.
Close that gap, and the activity becomes that much more meaningful.
Lisa: Oh my gosh, Josh, yes. That is the work, and that is worth doing right. Great point, Josh.
Josh: See? We ended on a high note.
Next week on Drop In, provided the keys to the studio still work, we are going to get into something else that stresses families out at the exact moment they can least afford it: letters of recommendation.
Lisa: Letters of recommendation. We get asked all the time whom to ask, what to ask, when to ask, how to ask, and how to make sure the person you are asking is actually going to say something specific and meaningful about the student.
“They were a pleasure to have in class” is very lovely. But as Josh and I know, since we were on the other side, it is not exactly going to knock anyone out of their chair, and that is not what you want.
Josh: Exactly. Generic recommendation letters are a prime example of a missed opportunity, and there is a lot that students can do to prevent that.
Lisa: Mm-hmm.
Josh: There is a lot that students can do to prevent that.
Lisa: Right, so you are definitely going to want to come back and hear this one.
Josh: Do not miss it.
Lisa: We are Decision Drop, making your college journey collaborative, simple, and most importantly, yours.
If you want Josh and me to help your kiddo find meaningful ways to get involved, build on the interests they already have, and tell their story authentically, head over to decisiondrop.com and check us out.
Josh: Thanks for dropping in. We will see you all next week.
Lisa: Bye.
