UC Activities List - How to Stand Out

Image Courtesy of Highland Park High School

The UC activities list is particularly generous, with a 350 character description for each activity, and 6 categories with up to 20 total activities. Today, we'll learn how to maximize this space on your application to give you the best shot at your dream UC.

Categories

The UC extracurricular and activities list includes several drop-down options to specify what kind of activity you did. These include: coursework other than A-G , educational preparation programs, community service, work experience, awards & honors, and extracurricular activities.

For the coursework option, consider this "non-school courses", which means you did not take these courses at your high school, or if you did, they were not considered general education and have a reason to be elaborated on beyond your transcript. Summer courses through universities or other programs count, and so do online courses for personal learning. Educational preparation programs are slightly different; these are non-scored courses meant to help students prepare for college or adapt to a more rigorous educational environment than they are used to. These courses may be offered through the state, or from a third party organization.

Community service includes volunteering, religious engagement work, mentoring, and the like. If the goal of the activity you are doing was mostly to help other people, rather than learn something or compete, then it's going to be community service. Work experience includes paid positions, unpaid internships at companies or organizations, or even freelance personal work such as web design, babysitting or pet-sitting, or selling handmade goods.

Extracurricular activities are the educational and/or competitive activities most people think of when they think of "clubs" or "teams". They can be as large as a citywide youth orchestra, or a small group at your school, but the end goal of these activities was learning and growth outside of a classroom teaching environment. Most examples include sports teams, public speaking events like Model UN or debate, knowledge competitions like chess or Quiz Bowl, or competitions like Science or Math Olympiads. Other activities are more creative, including theatre, band or orchestra, the visual arts, or creative writing with a final produced piece.

Awards and honors may come from any of these activities, or may be awarded by your school, religious organization, and even state or country. Include only your most impressive ones, and make sure they are recent- colleges don't care about much before middle school!

Organizing the List

For each category, put your top activity, either in accomplishments or time spent, first. Follow with the next-best until you reach the last slot or don't have other activities in a certain category. Next, get an honest assessment from yourself or the leaders of the group for the time spent estimates, and fill those in.

Writing the Descriptions

Now comes the important part: writing the 350 character descriptions. List the activity in full (no abbreviations) and your leadership role, if applicable. In the body of the description, you want to show problems you solved or lessons you learned, not just a list of what you did. Also note any changes you made to the group or community, particularly if you were in a leadership role.

Two factors will set apart your activities list from the rest: metrics and specific verbs. Metrics are numbers: how much money you raised, how many competitions you won, how many people you helped, etc. When you can show clear impact through the size of your metrics, you show that you weren't just sitting on the sidelines of the activity, but were an active participant. Second, use specific verbs to emphasize what actions you took in the activity. Harvard Business School has a great list of resume verbs you can start with here: https://www.alumni.hbs.edu/Documents/careers/ActionVerbsList.pdf

Additionally, if you learned any specific academic or career skills, such as research methods or technical computer skills, include these to show your readiness for college.

For these descriptions, write them like a resume, not an essay. Don't use complete sentences, mainly focus on the Verb-Object format. For example:

Don't: I competed on the debate team in many tournaments.

Do: Competed in 12 debate tournaments annually, raised 1,500 dollars for homecoming tournament

Another issue with activities lists is what to include versus exclude. If you have a very strong profile and have had decent involvement in multiple activities, do include everything to give an accurate portrayal of your high school experience. However, if you quit something freshman year, didn't accomplish or learn much from something, or spent less than 3 hours a week on it on average, you probably don't want to include it to avoid looking flakey, or worse, like you're scrambling to think of things you've done. Even if you've only been active in 3 activities, list those and use your PIQs to explain why you were committed to these and only these, rather than sinking to the point of putting "led freshman chant in pep rallies" for "2 weeks of the year".

Finally, be careful to include all activities referenced in your PIQs in the activities list! You don't have to include all activities and awards in your PIQs, but if they are important enough to be in your PIQ narrative, they must be in the list!

What about...?

It's possible that your experiences don't fall into the range of "traditional" extracurriculars and awards, including:

• Caregiving responsibilities for siblings, elderly relatives, or other close relations

• Receiving medical treatment or intervention for a health issue or accident

• Dealing with administrative issues related to immigration, the incarceration of a family member, or similar

• Independently preparing for military enlistment (if you are a veteran or ROTC student)

• Doing a program or exchange abroad for a significant amount of time (over 1 month)

• Doing activism or legal advocacy work outside of an organized group (e.g. working on a personal case of discrimination or working to reform a specific procedure based on your needs)

These can be included as activities, with a set amount of time dedicated to them and a description of what you did, why you had to do so, and what you learned from it. Giving a more nuanced explanation in your PIQ responses is more crucial for these than more standard activities, but they should be included because these are the types of things that have a significant impact on a student's life, and admissions officers will be more understanding of you not having regular activities if they know you were dealing with outside factors.

Final Thoughts

Overall, your activities list isn’t a list in the traditional sense, it's the setup for your personal application narrative that explains why you did what you did in high school and how it shaped you as a person. The University of California system gives you the space to tell that story in detail, so make the most of it by prioritizing the most important things you did and their impact.

If you’re unsure how to explain your activities, choose which ones to include, or want personalized feedback on your strategy, we’re here to help. Schedule a one-on-one discussion with one of our counselors to get tailored guidance and make sure every part of your application is working in your favor.