Your child's activity list: the checklist counsellors use

• Has the student stayed with this activity for two or more years?
• Has their involvement grown rather than stayed flat, for example more hours, harder work, or a bigger role over time?
• Would the people who run this activity recognise the student as a regular, not an occasional face?
• Is this something the student would keep doing even if it never appeared on an application?
• Can you point to one or two interests that clearly matter more than the rest?

What a counsellor is really asking: is there a genuine, lasting interest here, or a collection of things tried once and dropped?

• Can you name one responsibility the student holds now that they did not hold a year ago?
• Have they moved from simply attending to helping run, organise, teach or mentor?
• Do other people now rely on the student for something specific?
• If there is a title, is there real work behind it that you could describe in a sentence?
• Has the student handled a setback or a problem in this activity and kept going?

What a counsellor is really asking: is this a student who grows into more over time, or one who stays comfortable in the same spot?

• Did the student start, build or fix something without being asked?
• Is there a moment where they saw a gap or a problem and did something about it?
• Have they created anything you could show another person, for example an event, a group, a piece of work, a small project?
• Do they pursue things in their own time, not only when a teacher or parent sets them up?

What a counsellor is really asking: does this student wait to be told what to do, or do they move on their own?

• Can you name who benefited from the student's work, and how?
• Did the activity help a team, a club, a younger group, a family or a community in a way someone else would confirm?
• Is there something that would not have happened, or happened less well, without the student?
• Could one teacher or mentor describe the student's contribution in specific detail?

What a counsellor is really asking: did the student actually contribute something real, or just occupy a seat?

• Do the senior years show a clear direction, rather than a scramble of new activities added late?
• Is the student deepening and leading in Grade 11, not just joining more things?
• Is there a project or a piece of work from these years with a real outcome you could point to?
• In Grade 12, is the student sustaining and completing what they built, rather than starting from scratch?
• If you had to name what the senior years are really about for this student, could you, in one sentence?

What a counsellor is really asking: when it mattered most, did the student go deeper and finish what they started?