Three reasons why extracurricular and volunteer activities important.

I’ve written in the past about how important it is for admissions officers to get a sense ofyou as a person. A whole person, different than just grades, GPA, GMAT and numbers on a sheet. Recently I wrote about how it’s important that admissions officers understand your values, your character, your motivations, and your achievements.

Today, I’m going to tell you three reasons why extracurricular and volunteer activities are important for your MBA application.

1. You Have to Make Time for Extracurriculars & Volunteering

Admissions officers understand that students are busier now than they’ve ever been before. They understand that insanely competitive MBA application seasons like we saw in 2011 have driven many students to spend more time studying, preparing for tests, and honing their writing skills to ace their essays than they ever have in the past.

Given that applicants are spending more time preparing for their MBA applications than ever before, admissions officers are curious to see how well a candidiate managed their time as a student and now as a professional. Being an MBA candidate means that you will be working extremely hard to advance in your career, while trying to prepare for GMAT while still having a personal life. If you aren’t able to make the time you need to lead a well balanced life before you even start your MBA program, how are you going to handle a whole new load of responsibilities while maintaining a lifestyle which will contribute value to the world?

Extracurricular and volunteer activities showcase your time management skills, or lack thereof. In your application essays, consider how you can drive home the point that you are a masterful time manager who flourishes with multiple commitments and responsibilities to the admissions committee.

2. Extracurricular Activities are Proof of your Passions

How can you tell what someone is actually passionate about? You look at how they spend their time. Given that these activities show whether or not a person is good at managing their time, we next turn to think about what they spend their time on.

The thing is, it’s really easy to write a list of incredible sounding passions down on paper to impress a stranger. Writing down a list of passions to persuade an admissions officer that you are a valuable asset to their university is another matter altogether.

If Terry says that he’s passionate about entrepreneurship in his MBA application, but all of his extracurricular activities are playing basketball and entering into video game tournaments, an admissions officer will really have to wonder whether Terry is truly passionate about entrepreneurship. If, on the other hand, Terry had formed a Student Entrepreneurship Alliance Club during college and invited numerous inspiring entrepreneurs to come and speak at his club, an admissions officer would have a much easier time believing that Terry is passionate about entrepreneurship.

His extracurricular activities prove that he is passionate about entrepreneurship by showing that he spends his free time, however scarce it may be, educating himself and engaging with entrepreneurship.

3. Volunteer Activities Show Commitment to Social Justice

Along similar lines, volunteer activities are important to many schools. Diversity, social justice, and a spirit of giving back are all important points of any school’s identity, and brand. Schools use these values to sell themselves to potential students, and need to find a student body which matches up with those values. When you volunteer at the Red Cross, start a nonprofit organization, or tutor underprivileged children, it shows admissions officers that you care about giving back to your community, and that your values match up with the values of their school.

If Terry says that social justice is important to him in his MBA application, but spends all of his time surfing the internet, an admissions officer doesn’t have a reason to believe that social justice is important to him. If Terry had built a website which gives people an opportunity to donate money to a children’s charity, or to the fight to cure cancer, then admissions staff have proof that Terry cares about social justice.

Your volunteer & extracurricular activities show admissions staff your values better than a list or a essay ever could. They show a clear narrative story about the type of person you are, the things which matter to you, and are hard evidence of how you are likely to continue spending your time and contributing value to your community once you are admitted to your new MBA program.