How you answer this question says a lot about how interesting you'll be to colleges.
Imagine that all of your obligations–school, homework, soccer practice, anything that fills your schedule–magically disappeared for the next month (and you were somehow guaranteed that their disappearance would in no way negatively affect you or your college future). What would you do with that time?
Interesting students have interesting answers that question, like..
- Try to see one baseball game in every single major league park in America.
- Take some Italian cooking classes.
- Adopt a guide dog for the blind and train it.
- Travel to Europe and backpack for a month.
- Make more of my jewelry and sell it on Etsy
- Surf every day and maybe take some fishing trips with my friends.
- Run a marathon.
- Relax, write in my journal, and read whatever I wanted.
- Take all the cool classes my gym offers that I never have time to take, like yoga and hip-hop dance.
- Draw a lot. Maybe do some painting, too.
- Play pick-up basketball games with my friends.
Here's the thing about interesting people–they have interests. Not things they're doing just to help them get into college, but real interests, things they enjoy and want to spend more time doing, or new things they'd like to explore. That's why interesting students love this scenario.
Less interesting kids say things like:
- I have no idea.
- Sleep a lot and hang out with my friends.
- Study for the SAT.
- Get more community service hours at the local homeless shelter.
There's nothing wrong with those answers. It's not bad to work at a homeless shelter. It's just sad that the kid's doing it just to pad his service hours. How much better would it be for him and for the people he's helping if he volunteered somewhere he really cared about? Answers like these aren't indicators of real interests. They indicate either a lack of interests, or a focus on doing things just to get you into college.
A
lot of high school students fill their schedules with so many
obligations, so many scheduled activities that they believe will make
them "look good to colleges," that they don't have any genuine interests of
their own. Working hard and committing yourself to your college future is a good thing, but you're still allowed to have free time to pursue real interests. In fact, the colleges will reward you for doing it.