Is doing a self made project a good extracurricular

Answered

Automated trading is a great idea that seems pretty unique, at least as of now. I don't know too much about investing, but if it really is automated, you probably won't NEED to spend too much time on it since if I'm interpreting your project correctly, the majority of the work (actually finding the stocks) will be done by the algorithm that you are using. You might spend a lot of time, in the beginning, to set up the code and properly implement it, but after that, I would think that you would only need a few hours a week for general maintenance and check if the algorithm is working or see if you want to change its criteria. However, I think that you might have to think a little broader as to what you are hoping to accomplish with this project if you really want to use this to help you get into an Ivy League college. Some ideas you can consider: what do you plan on using those investments for (donations, family expenses, etc.)? Are you planning to teach others how to do what you are doing? How do you expect this project to grow throughout your high school career? As for your third question, CollegeVine describes an extracurricular as "anything you do routinely outside of the classroom, and not for academic credit" and "should also be valuable to you, and have [a] significant impact on your development." Therefore, your project is technically an extracurricular, especially since projects can be extracurriculars (I don't think that they are typically separate), but you should brainstorm ways to make this extracurricular even more outstanding. And lastly, I don't know how much experience you have in investing already, but I don't see a reason to not join investing competitions such as the Wharton Challenge or apps like Rapunzl (which can actually earn you scholarships). If you don't feel like doing those, you will probably have to add additional things to your project to make it more like an actual extracurricular, if you know what I mean. Essentially, you will be implementing a "better idea" directly into your project which will help it to look more complete and significant. Hope that helps!