Middle school represents a bridge between a student's status as a child in elementary school to their status as a developing young adult in high school. Perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of crossing this bridge is a student's attempt to identify those skills, hobbies, people and attitudes that are truly important to them. Consequently, during the middle years, students might "try on" different extracurricular activities to figure out "what fits" their developing personality. Finding the extracurriculars they enjoy (and which they don't enjoy) may help middle school students develop their personality as they enter their teen years.
Students who participate in extracurricular activities are more likely to have greater academic success than students who do not. Researchers have found that extracurriculars form a bonded network between activities students enjoy (sports, clubs and so on) with school activities about which the student might be ambivalent (studying, school projects, and so on). This association causes the student's desire to perform well in extracurriculars to transfer to school work.
Perhaps the greatest function of middle school extracurricular activities is their ability to help form tightknit social groups within the school population. While elementary school students rarely form tight friendship bonds, preferring familial bonds or bonds with teachers, middle school socialization is almost entirely defined by peer groups. Extracurricular activities provide a non-classroom environment in which students can interact and socialize, greatly building upon their interpersonal social skills. For students who do not participate in extracurriculars, socialization might be a challenging experience.
As students graduate from high school, their future academic or career paths are as likely to relate back to their scholastic success as their extracurricular activities. Consequently, the activities that those same students picked in middle school could have been early predictors of those student's future career or academic pursuits. The extracurricular activities students choose in middle school can have lifelong benefits.