Stellar Extracurricular Activities To Boost Your Application

Extracurricular activities are an integral part of applications to colleges abroad, be it the United States or the United Kingdom. These are living proofs of who you are as a person, your personality, and your strengths. Be it an undergraduate, a master’s, or a doctoral application, extracurricular activities hold an essential position in one’s college application.

In this blog, you will come to know the importance of extracurricular activities while applying to college. Moreover, there are a few precautions one should take while taking up extracurricular activities and mentioning them in one’s application. You will be familiarised with this as well.

You will also get a lot of ideas for extracurricular activities that you can take up to boost your college applications.

Let’s discuss a few benefits of pursuing a Ph.D. from the USA; the below points will be helpful for students to know whether they’re making the right choice if it’s on your list.

What are Extracurricular activities?

Extracurricular activities are the activities that one does outside of their academics, either as a hobby, passtime, profession, etc. Extracurricular activities in resume for freshers become even more important since they have not had any professional job experience. The extracurricular activities in resume for freshers demonstrate all the soft skills as well as technical skills that are wanted by colleges and companies.

What is the importance of extracurricular activities?

You must be aware of the numerous college application essays one must write while applying to colleges in the US, UK, and other countries. While these essays reflect your personality, moral character, and strengths, these extra co-curricular activities prove that you have been doing all the things that you have mentioned in your essays throughout your academic career so far.

Such extra co-curricular activities also show that an applicant is ready to take the initiative to engage in activities apart from academics and can handle all the responsibilities that come with these activities, along with the academic pressure.

Moreover, colleges in the US, UK, and countries abroad do not want college students who are merely exemplary in academics. These colleges want a well-rounded batch of incoming students who bring different talents, strengths, specializations, and experiences to their vibrant campus and make it even more prosperous in diversity.

Undoubtedly, stellar extracurricular activities in a CV can enhance and boost an applicant’s application for admission. It is integral for an applicant to have at least a few extracurricular activities on their resume.

Stellar Extracurricular Activities Examples

Now that you understand the importance of extracurricular activities let us look at some examples of extracurricular activities that you can take up to boost your college application. We will also discuss the skills that each extracurricular activity demonstrates in your resume and what it tells about you as a person.

Sports

• All schools have sports activities throughout the year. You can be a part of the school team or your house team for any particular sport and participate in tournaments like inter-school and inter-house cricket tournaments, football tournaments, basketball tournaments, etc. You can also participate extensively in Annual Sports Day Events.
• You can also participate in national and international level competitions and tournaments. This fetches you the highest brownie points.
• Skills Demonstrated
  • Demonstrating participation in sports-related extracurricular activities in your CV shows that you can take on intense pressure situations like those encountered in sports competitions. Sportsman spirit is an added brownie point to any individual’s personality in general. Showing sportsmanship during failure is highly appreciated, and the will to win is also applauded.
  • In addition to that, if you participate in team sports, it shows your ability to work in a team to achieve a common goal and win for the whole team. It also teaches you to handle differences so that the team stays united. You can bring in these qualities learned from sports in every sphere of life, including your college classroom.
  • As a bonus, if you become the captain of the sports team, it demonstrates your leadership skills and the ability to take charge in stressful situations and be able to hold accountability and responsibility.

Public Speaking / Model United Nations

• There are multiple public speaking competitions one can participate in. These include debate contests, elocution competitions, poetry competitions, etc. You can also work as an MC, anchor, or host for various events taking place at your school and outside your school.
• Model United Nations is another prestigious and highly sought-after extracurricular activity that college admission committees well receive. Various Model United Competitions are being conducted in India for high school and college students with amazing prizes.
• You can participate on an individual level to represent your school in such content. Being a winner in Model United Nations or any Public Speaking competitions and having a winning streak in a few of them can go a long way in enhancing your resume and giving a boost to your application.
• Skills Demonstrated
  • Public speaking competitions demonstrate excellent verbal and communication skills, a talent highly sought after in any individual. In a college classroom, as in any sphere of life, communication among peers is integral. Having this social skill can be beneficial to the entire group as you will be able to present your ideas in a better way and communicate them as precisely as possible.
  • Also, knowing how to talk and respond in a professional setting is crucial, and a proven good track record in public speaking competitions is proof of this skill.
  • Model United Nations is very competitive. The reason is that not only does one have to be a good speaker, but one should also have an excellent amount of knowledge about geopolitics. Being able to harness the abundance of information and use it as and when required to defend your stance or prove your point during the debate while maintaining the decorum of the competition is very important. Being able to do so shows the ability to hold professional conversations efficiently in college and workplace settings.

Cultural Extra Co Curricular Activities

• Colleges in the US, UK, and other countries are always looking for diversity in their classrooms. Be it cultural diversity or diversity of experiences, views, and opinions, they are always looking forward to it.
• Pursuing a cultural activity like any classical dance form, for example, Kathak, Bharatanatyam, or classical music and instruments, can largely boost your application.
• Skills Demonstrated
  • Such activities not only show your unique talent, but they are also a means through which you will add to the cultural diversity of your college and bring in your culture and share it with others, and similarly be able to learn fantastic information about other cultures through your classmates.

Publications

• If you are a good writer, you can write content for publishers. Getting articles, essays, poems, and research papers published in reputed journals is a significant achievement and shines on the resume.
• You can also work as a freelance content writer for clients using websites such as LinkedIn, Fiver, etc. Approaching clients for providing freelance services requires dedication and hard work. If you are able to crack the code, you will get another star in your list of extracurricular activities in your resume.
• One can also write a book, no matter the length of the book. For high school or college students, it might be convenient to write for an audience of younger age. You can write fiction, non-fiction, informational, and other kinds of books. If you find a publisher, you have a stellar extracurricular to boost your application and talk about it in your essays.
• However, even if you do not find a publisher, you can still publish your book on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing, i.e., KDP. The book will be printed on demand by a buyer, and the process of selling your text in the market will be made. However, it will lack the publicity and marketing that is done for a book when published by a publication house. Nevertheless, Amazon KDP is a great option to get your book into the market if you cannot find a publishing house.
• Skills Demonstrated
  • Having a publication shows exceptional writing skills. Also, pitching your writing work to get published is not a piece of cake and requires constant effort. This shows dedication and hard work in the applicant.
  • Also, having good writing skills helps in all spheres of life, from doing efficiently in class when it comes to writing essays for your courses to being excellent in written communication at the workplace.

Internships / Research / Freelancing

• As a student, you can apply for summer or winter internships and can also intern after school or college hours at any firm or organization of your choice.
• You can also research under university professors in your area of interest. This is in addition to your academic requirements.
• If you have any tangible skills, like video editing, content writing, photography, filmmaking, etc., you can provide freelance services for the same. You will also start getting paid once you have done substantial work. You can also tutor younger children in the subjects you are the strongest in.
• Skills Demonstrated
  • Reaching out to firms, organizations, and professors for internship and research opportunities requires a lot of effort. This includes cold-emailing professionally until you receive a reply, and all the while doing it strategically.
  • Approaching freelance clients and getting work also requires persistent efforts. One needs to pitch for oneself and earn the trust of a client to get a job.
  • After getting the internship, the research opportunity, or the freelance project, one needs to deliver the best possible results as well. You can apply the discipline that comes along with it in all spheres of life.
  • This also shows your dedication and effort to do something outside of school or college work and grow and put to use a tangible skill of yours. This shows in your application what you will be bringing to the table.

Volunteer Work

• Impacting the lives of other people in your community is the best form of social service one can provide. It can be helping older people, children, and people in need or taking efforts and initiatives to help save the environment.
• Colleges appreciate social work very much in any part of the world. NGOs and other organizations are working towards numerous noble causes. You can participate in helping the needy, animal protection, plantation drives, cleanliness campaigns, and many more activities.
• If you find that there is not substantial work happening in your locality or area, you can also take the initiative of starting your own NGO to help a noble cause.
• Skills Demonstrated
  • Volunteering shows great moral character. The willingness to help those in need without expecting anything in return is an invaluable virtue. Colleges across the globe support a sense of community and appreciate students helping bring a change in the society.

Student Council

• Every school has a Student Council body consisting of the Head Boy and Head Girl (President), Deputy/Vice Head Boy and Girl (Vice President), Sports Captains, Cultural Secretaries, etc.
• You can compete for one of these positions. For example, if you are excellent at sports, you can become the Sports Captain of your school or your house.
• Skills Demonstrated
  • Being a part of the Student Council shows excellent leadership skills. This also indicates that the applicant is capable of taking up responsibilities. They will be able to handle classroom discussions effectively and, whenever required, lead them as well. The applicant is able to hold people together and help them stay focused on one common goal.

Online Courses and Certifications / College Level Courses

• Taking up and completing online courses and certifications can be an added benefit to your list of extracurricular activities in your CV. There are websites, such as EdX, Coursera, Udemy, etc., that offer a wide range of academic and non-academic courses and certifications.
• You can learn a new skill and a new language, code, enhance your knowledge on any topic, and much more.
• You can also take up college level courses on either these websites or from any university that allows high school and college students to attend specific classes on campus.
• Skills Demonstrated
  • Completing courses and certifications online shows the initiative to take up challenging courses outside your regular school or college curriculum. This also demonstrates your knowledge of a variety of topics and subject matter.

Summer School / Exchange Programs

• An applicant who has been to summer school or exchange program has a lot of unique experiences and learning to bring to the classroom. While summer schools and exchange programs are mostly paid and expensive, one can apply for scholarships and financial aid to attend these programs. An example is the Yale Young Global Scholars Program.
• Skills Demonstrated
  • During such programs, an applicant gets exposed to a unique set of peers and a different cultural experience, helping the applicants become used to meeting people who do not share the same cultural or social background as theirs. This makes them even more open to meeting new people and adjusting to new surroundings. The stories and the learnings that these programs provide build an applicant’s personality in some way or another.

Start-up / Entrepreneurship

• If you have a business mind and a business plan to solve a problem in the real world, you can consider building a start-up, no matter how small, and try to earn money from it. Even if you do not make profits, if you are able to solve any problem, it will show your problem-solving and entrepreneurial abilities.
• Skills Demonstrated
  • Entrepreneurship is difficult in itself and requires a lot of effort and dedication. Solving real-world problems quantitatively and qualitatively shows excellent business acumen, proof that if you go on the business path in your further college life, you will have a great set of skills to increase your chances of doing something big.