
Hot “college counselor” take:
I don’t care if you are the president of a club.
I don’t care if you’re vice president either.
I’ll double down.
I don’t care if you FOUNDED a club.
To stress the points made above one more time.
I. Don’t. Care. At. All.
In fact, I care about the one thing that all of the best high school extracurriculars have in common:
Personal Growth -- setting goals, learning from experiences, and overcoming challenges that positively impact your emotional, intellectual, social, and/or spiritual development.
What does personal growth in extracurricular activities look like? The answer varies from student to students. Also, in many cases, personal growth is a development of soft skills – things like communication, team work, empathy, purpose -- skills that are harder to quantify that say learning a new coding language.
Let’s be honest.
Most high school students believe that holding formal leadership roles (like being chess club president or NHS treasurer) “matters” in the university admission process. Spoiler alert: It doesn't... not always.
We all know that formal leadership titles only mean something if they actually mean something. Not all high school clubs actively make a positive impact on their members or their larger community.
So, I’ll state it again at the risk of overstating my point. I don’t care if you are president, vice president, founder, CEO — unless your time in that role is something of substance.
Substance means that you are able to articulate the impact of your participation in whatever you choose to do, and that experience's impact back on you.
Here’s the beautiful thing.
If you don’t hold a formal leadership title but you can still articulate how you have grown personally through your participation in any extracurricular activity and why it has been meaningful to you, that’s a WIN!
In fact, it's more than a win, it's the one thing that all of the best high school extracurricular activities have in common!
Personal growth and development is of the utmost importance. Consider these actual university application essay prompts.
Texas A&M’s 2025 Undergraduate Application:
Describe a life event which you feel has prepared you to be successful in college.
University of Texas - Austin 2025 Undergraduate Application:
Think of all the activities — both in and outside of school — that you have been involved with during high school. Which one are you most proud of and why?
Answering each of these prompts will require far more than simply listing a leadership title held. To best answer the prompt, you have to consider more deeply why the role matters. How has it prepared you for success? Why are you most proud of it compared to all the other things you have accomplished?
The best high school extracurricular activities are those that provide you honest, meaningful, and measurable outcomes that allow you to demonstrate your impact on something important to you and the impact it had on you in return.
Defining personal growth through high school extracurricular activities can be done by identifying the soft skills and hard skills learned.
Soft skills include things like:
Communication skills: active listening, public speaking, email writing, body language, tone of voice
Teamwork/Collaboration: working with groups, resolving conflicts and disagreements, supporting and motivating team members, building strong relationships, networking
Problem solving: creative thinking, critical thinking, decision making, adaptability, flexibility
Time management: prioritizing tasks and deadlines, managing competing priorities, organization and planning
Emotional intelligence: self-awareness and self-regulation, empathy, understanding others’ emotions, managing stress and staying calm
Leadership and Management: delegation, motivation, inspiration, conflict management and conflict resolution, provide constructive feedback
Relevance to future opportunities, including college, jobs, and leadership roles.
Hard skills include things like:
Writing and Editing: technical writing, editing, grant writing
Technical Skills: programming languages, software development, database management
Analytical skills: data analysis, data interpretation and reporting
Project management: Agile and SCRUM methodologies, risk management, budgeting
Accounting and finance management: financial accounting, analysis, bookkeeping
Design skills: software knowledge, video editing, graphic design software
While hard skills act as the tools and knowledge base you might need to perform a specific job function, soft skills represent you ability to stay calm, organized, motivated, and receptive to teamwork and organizational goals. In other words, soft skills make you a better student while learning the hard skills.
How Do You Develop Soft Skills?
Step 1: Recognize their importance in your overall success.
Learning software, programming, languages, writing, is all important. But without strong soft skills in the mix, you might struggle with confidence or communicating your ideas to teams, bosses, or clients.
Step 2: Work with diverse groups toward a common goal.
Working with diverse people and on diverse projects will create the space for you to be adaptable in your approaches to problem solving and group work. You will learn a variety of skills and benefit from varied perspectives and experiences. This is a soft skill building gold mine!
Step 3: Be proactive.
If you know your communication skills are weak, join a debate team.
If you’re battling shyness, start small. Join virtual activities or school-led volunteer opportunities where the pressure is lower. Baby steps are still steps!
Get involved in extracurricular activities that you actually care about, and then push yourself to focus on personal areas of improvement. Remember to document in the notes app on your phone or in your resume document the successes you have along the way.
Step 4: Reflect.
When you complete major projects, initiatives, or wrap up the school year, pausing to reflect on your experiences, what you learned, what you really enjoyed, and what you might choose to avoid in the future, including reflection on the soft skills you have learned is critical to creating a cohesive and comprehensive narrative about how your extracurricular activities have driven you forward. Plus, reflection reminds you to be proud of yourself!
Like most of the advice you will receive in preparing for the college application process, the idea that the titles you hold in extracurricular activities carries more weight or importance in the review of your overall admission application is just not telling the whole truth.
Formal leadership can be incredible experiences. Founding a high school club or creating your own research project can show great leadership. But formal titles and moments of self-directed learning are just that -- moments -- until you are able to pause and reflect on why these experiences matter, how they have changed you, and who you are now because you participated.
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