I'm guessing that there isn't one that is actually meaningfully true, Wren.
If there were, it would immediately be perverted by the prevailing "in at all costs" mentality surrounding the college admissions rat race, anyway, which would invalidate it within a year or two. That means that using such a list prepares students to be hypercompetitive for an admissions game that is about 10 years BEHIND when they'll actually apply, in most cases. You can't really get the time and training in time to make use of it in a timely fashion if you were to learn that "steer roping" was the Next Big Ticket. Because colleges are looking for kids that have 6-10 years of "commitment" to whatever it is.
From what I can tell (insider info and also parent reports from HS-into-college process), there are some offbeat things that play well at individual schools, and hitting those means that nobody else is going to much care...
I mean, "fencing" is one of those things, KWIM? A school that doesn't have even club athletics to support it isn't going to care any more about fencing than about llama agility on a student's EC list.
Bottom line is that it is probably not wise to choose EC's for most kids on the basis of what others will think of those things. It's too unpredictable and it changes too rapidly. It's like hitting the jackpot if you HAPPEN to be in the right place (10 years invested into {activity} and good skills} at the right time (just when Prestigious U. decides that they REALLY want kids with Unicycle Expertise).
Last edited by HowlerKarma; 08/28/13 07:45 AM. Reason: lack of caffeine and a failing backspace key
