How to Make Your Common Application a Lot Less Common
Seniors, it's that time of year! It's August and that means not only is the summer drawing to a close, but it is almost time for your college application process to kick into high gear. Many students will apply to at least one college that uses the Common Application, so a few inside tips from our friends at Collegewise to get you motivated. Remember, the Common Application went live on August 1st...so the clock is ticking!
Today's Collegewise Tip: Completing that pesky Activities section:
The Activities section causes the most confusion with students. There is no one accepted way to list your activities here, which is actually intentional on the part of the Common App. They want to give kids a little bit of flexibility. But here's how we tell our Collegewise students to approach this section, and it's worked very well for us and for them.
First, it's always good to read the directions to the right. You'll find all sorts of good tidbits of information, but here are a couple of general guidelines to this section:
• Don't plan to attach a resume as part of the Additional Information or send one to any college, unless that college specifically asks you to do it. Admissions officers spend a lot of time constructing the applications so that they can collect all the information they need to know about students. If you send a résumé without being asked, it's like telling them that you didn't like the way they put the application together. That might annoy them, which is never a good idea.
• Notice that they ask you you're your activities in order of importance to you. Start with the one activity that you could never imagine your high school career without and work your way down from there. After you enter the first one, you can always move the order around using the "Up/Down" buttons.
• Space can be limited in this section, so it's fine to abbreviate as long as the abbreviation is universally understood. It would be hard to find an admissions officer who doesn't know what an MVP or NHS is, but there are many other abbreviations that mean something only to the people involved in the group that uses it. Some acronyms need to be spelled out, especially if they are unique to your school or your state. In addition, you'll find you can save space by using numbers in the right place, i.e., "Senior Class Vice President" can be also be "Class VP: 12," or "First Place in Conference Championship as a Sophomore and Junior" can be "1st in
Conf. Championship: 10, 11." But be cautious. If you find yourself so desperate to squeeze in information here, and if your abbreviations start making this section look like a series of awkward text messages, then you may want to consider carefully using the Additional Information section to give yourself some breathing room.
• Don't feel that you need to fill up all 10 lines! The applicant with the longest list of activities is not necessarily the one who's going to get in. Admissions officers want to learn about the significant ways you spent your time outside class. If you were in the Spanish Club in the 9th grade and never went back after that, how does that really help your application to list it? Leave the space blank or use that spot to share something else more important to you. Remember, this isn't a contest to see how much you can list; it's your chance to describe what you really enjoyed doing in high school.
Ask yourself two questions for this section:
1) "Is it possible that whoever is reading this application might not understand what this activity really was, according to the information I provided above?"
2) "Did the organization or I accomplish anything that can't be summed up with a simple recognition that I listed above?" If the answer to either of those two questions is "Yes," then you should provide that information here.
For example, let's say you listed your camp counselor work under "Work (Paid)." But what if the camp were specifically for children with physical and mental disabilities? That's something interesting the reader wouldn't know just from the previous two sections. So, here's where you could put the camp's name—if it's not already included—and description, like "Special Camp for Special Kids: Camp for children with physical and mental disabilities."
What if your school paper won a statewide award during your junior year? That's a cool accomplishment that can't be summed up in the previous two sections. Here's where you could say, "February, 2014 issue won the statewide journalism award, 'Excellence in Student Press.' "
If you've won a lot of awards for one particular activity, it's fine to summarize them here, such as, "six first-place awards, three honorable-mention ribbons."
What about hobbies?
We have some non‑traditional, Collegewise advice about listing a hobby on the Common App.
Do you have a hobby that you care about, something that's not an official activity, but one that you put time into? Maybe you've taught yourself to play guitar in a garage band with your friends. Maybe you enjoy drawing, writing, or composing music, even though you aren't publishing or performing any of it. Or, maybe you and your friends are Beatles fanatics who gather on Wednesdays and listen to your favorite songs together. If you have something you care about, we suggest that you list it in the Activities section for two reasons.:
First, real interest makes you interesting. Admissions officers really are trying to get to know the applicants. Thus, if you have a hobby you really enjoy, that's an important part of your life that they should know about.
Second, when you share something a little personal like a hobby, it breaks up the tedium for an admissions officer who is reading app after app after app, day after day after day.
List a hobby only if it's important to you. A good way to gauge this is to imagine a college interviewer asking you about it. Would you have something to say? Could you tell a good story about the time you put into this or what you've learned how to do? If you made an origami swan one time, you're not going to have much to say about origami. However, if you've read books about origami and have taught yourself how to make 20 different advanced origami creations, you've got something to talk about.
Don't include a hobby you started last week just to list it on your Common Application. And don't get too cute and start listing things like, "Petting my dog" or "Sleep." It's better to not include those interests in these cases.
This excerpt is taken from the Collegewise Guide to the Common Application. You can find out more at www.collegewise.com, or contact Amy Chatterjee at the Collegewise Westport office amych@collegewise.com or 203-557-1032.