Each part of the application helps us to get to know you in a different way. Questions regarding community service or extracurricular activities try to get at your interests and passions beyond your work. These activities represent how well rounded you may be as well as how interested you are in the world around you. At Booth, our focus is much more on your history of involvement rather than just recent activity. This is a chance for you to move beyond a simple list to helping us understand your contributions, leadership, time commitment and motivations for getting involved.
While we understand that there are many differences across the world in terms of engagement in community service, I am fairly certain that each one of you has many interests other than work. Whether you are involved in formal programs or support programs informally, we’re interested in learning what you do and why.
For those of you that have jobs that require you to work long hours or travel extensively, we encourage you to focus on what you have done in the past and what you do now to stay involved (and sane).
Remember, this is just ONE component in your application that gives us clues about who you are, what you value, and how you engage. We’re not looking for long lists, so take the time to structure how you wish to address the question, include enough information for us to understand your involvements and prioritize what’s most important. Finally, if you think this area may be a bit light for you, don’t worry. As I said earlier, this is just one of MANY components of the application and we take each person’s unique circumstances into consideration in our evaluation.
Read the full article: Extracurricular Activities