Exactly how important are your activities?

[superbity]

Ok I'm not a boring person with nothing to offer. But I haven't really gotten involved AT my school, something I'm really regretting now and one of the reasons I'm looking forward to college - so I can start fresh.

I'm pretty athletic, play a lot of tennis and run in my spare time. I do a lot of creative writing in my spare time as well. But for my recommendation letters, I can't write under "activities" stuff like "Played Varsity Tennis" or "Co-Captain of Cross-Country team," since I did these things on my own, in my spare time. As of now I don't have many activities - I do Speech & Debate and Model United Nations and have won good awards in both, I was a staff member for the school newspaper last year, and I am currently an editor for my school magazine.

But that's basically it. Sports-wise, like I said I have nothing to say. I do a bunch of volunteer work though - at the animal shelter, homeless shelter, afterschool tutoring kids in a problematic area - which I'm hoping could make up for my slight shortage of activities.
Will this affect my chances a lot, if on my rec letters I don't have many activities listed? I'm confident that ACTUALLY rushing, speaking with girls from all the chapters, won't be too much of a problem for me because I'm a people-person and have lots of speaking skills plus I'll be able to talk about how I do have several big interests.

This fall I'm starting my senior year of highschool, so I still have time to get a few activities in and such (not JUST for the sake of going greek) but I'm wondering if as of now this would put me at a significant disadvantage...?