The ‘extracurricular’ question lives on

Harvard asks the question on 3 different applications.

In its previous life, the Common Application required all applicants to provide two writing samples—a personal statement of about 500 words and a 150-word short answer focused on a single extracurricular activity or work experience.

Many writing coaches liked the extracurricular question because it basically served as a “warm-up” for reluctant writers or students who had little or no experience in writing essays, particularly those that required a bit of reflection. In other words, it was a good place to start, especially for students nervous about their writing abilities, by asking them to describe one activity they cared about. 

And colleges seemed to like the question. In fact, the Universal College Application (UCA) still asks applicants to “Tell us more about one of your extracurricular, volunteer, or employment activities (100-150 words).”

"We promote the philosophy of ‘asking the customer’ which we do several times throughout the year," explained Joshua Reiter, Ed.D., president of ApplicationsOnline. "Our college/university members provide us with their requirements on the types of information they need in order to craft their incoming classes. This question remains because our member colleges and universities want it.”

Two years ago, the new Common App (CA4) dropped the short answer in favor of a much longer, 650-word single writing sample. The extracurricular essay was relegated to one of a series of possibilities provided in a bank of questions from which colleges could choose as writing supplements or additions to the basic application.

But despite the demotion, the question apparently lives on, as nearly 60 Common App member institutions continue to ask students variations on the question such as “briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities or work experiences that was particularly meaningful to you” (Princeton) or “briefly elaborate on an extracurricular activity or work experience of particular significance to you” (Amherst). Included on this list are:

·       Amherst College (175 words)

·       Brown University (150 words)

·       Christian Brothers University

·       Davidson College (200 words)

·       Guilford College

·       Harvard University *#

·       Princeton University (150 words)*

·       Purdue University

·       Rice University (150 words)*#

·       Seattle University (50 to 100 words)

·       Stanford University

·       Tulane University

·       University of Wisconsin—Madison (50-100 words)

·       Vanderbilt University (150-400)*#

·       Vassar College (350 words)

·       Washington and Lee University 

Students tackling this question, or some variation, should embrace the opportunity to write about an activity they actually care passionately about. Here are some tips:

• The Activity: Don’t pick an activity because you think it needs further explanation or because you think it will impress an admissions reader. Colleges want to know what’s important to you. Use this opportunity to write about your greatest passion whether it’s playing the violin, swimming, or working at the local thrift shop.
  
• Show Importance: You want to do more than simply describe the activity. You want to provide some context in your narrative that will illustrate or otherwise surface its importance. This can be in the form of analysis or a brief anecdote. Or you can focus on specific impact—what you did and why. The purpose of the essay isn’t for readers to learn more about the activity; it’s for them to learn about you.
  
• Provide Details: Vague language and generic detail inevitably fail to convey passion. If you can imagine thousands of other applicants using the same ideas and phrases, you need to try another approach. Be colorful and specific in your descriptions, while avoiding clichés and tired language. Write in the active (not passive) tense—those helper verbs not only slow the action but they also add unnecessary words to your narrative.
  
• Avoid Repetition.  If you related an anecdote about one of your most important extracurricular activities in your personal statement, don’t go back over the same ground. Go for the next most important activity or one that sets you apart from the pack.
  
• Be Precise: Short answers need to be concise and substantive especially if the word count is very limited. Unlike the personal statement, you may be actually “telling” as much as “showing” to get the point across that this is a meaningful activity for you. There’s no space for flowery language, wordiness, or repetition when you’re working with 150 words. On the other hand, don’t come up short on your word count. Take full advantage of the opportunity to show your passion using compelling descriptions.
  
• Avoid Bragging: When elaborating on an extracurricular activity, be careful not to come across as an insufferable braggart with an ego as big as all outdoors. Again, it’s more about passion and not individual awards or accomplishments. Don’t use the essay as a vehicle for self-promotion.
  
• Be Real: Resist the temptation to create a false reality in an effort to sound impressive. Don’t write about the one time you walked for hunger if your real passion is marching band. Colleges won’t admit based on a single good deed. They want students who reveal motivation, persistence, passion and honesty.

* Also asks the question on the Universal College Application

# Also asks the question on the Coalition Application

Fantastic guide to the Common Application offered as FREE download

If you’re college applicant or someone who advises college applicants, you may want to check out the Collegewise Guide to the Common Application or How to Make Your 2016-17 Common Application a Lot Less Common. Revised to reflect changes in this year’s online application, the guide is provided as a FREE download to the simply curious or anyone with a real need to know. 

And this is 90 pages of pure gold. The advice and commentary are easy to follow and right on target. It’s designed for a student to keep open in one browser tab while working the Common Application in another.

“It originally started off as an internal training tool, then something we used with our own Collegewise students, and now has evolved into a 90-page (!) document that we love sharing with folks who find this kind of nuanced information useful,” writes Allison Lopour, managing director for Collegewise. “Thousands of students, parents, and counselors downloaded it last year.”

Here are some suggestions from Collegewise on how the guide may be used:

• If you haven’t started your Common App, complete each section with the help of step-by-step instructions provided with relevant definitions and commentary.
• 
  If you’ve already finished your application, use the guide to do a line-by-line review before submitting.
• 
  If you’re struggling with a particular section, use the guide as a reference tool.

Basically the guide picks up where the Common Application leaves off.  In fact, the information the Common App provides is actually quite comprehensive and should be the first-line resource for completing your application. But if you don’t know which phone number to use during the registration process, Collegewise will give you some serious hints.  It doesn’t rehash directions, but rather assumes you’ve read the instructions and still have a few questions. No one wants you to ignore directions, but we all know that what seems clear to one person may not be so clear to another.

For those who have used the guide in the past, you will note that the detailed screenshots that previously populated the pages and made things a little visually clearer are missing. Basically, administrators at the Common Application stopped granting permission to for-profits to use any images from the application. 

Yes, there’s a little self-promotion and advertisement. And yes, you do need to provide an email address to get the download. But the value of this tool and the integrity of its authors should remove any concerns you may have about downloading and sharing it with others.

Now we’re hoping the brilliant Collegewise staff will tackle the Coalition Application!

Colleges increasingly want applicant résumés

Claremont McKenna College

High school students who invest time putting together résumés may be handsomely rewarded in the college application process.   Of 653 Common Application member colleges and universities that are “live” as of this writing, at least 185—or well over a quarter—have made specific provisions for or require the submission of this handy document.

This hasn’t always been the case.  In fact, there remains a lingering controversy over the appropriateness of asking students to develop and maintain résumés throughout high school.

In their guide to college admissions, Robin Mamlet and Christine VanDeVelde take a strong position against:  “Resumes are for adults applying for jobs, not teenagers applying to colleges.” The idea is that the application form itself should provide enough room for all the information colleges want.

But many college advisers and lots of colleges very much disagree.

“When I first start guiding a student through college planning, I often begin by learning about interests and hobbies, which leads into a discussion about the importance of extracurricular commitment, both in and out of school. The conversation typically gets the ball rolling on a higher level of student engagement and on the creation and ongoing updating of a résumé,” said Judi Robinovitz, a Certified Educational Planner in Palm Beach and Broward counties, Florida.  “A student’s résumé should be far more than a list of extracurricular activities and personal commitments. It’s an opportunity for a student to truly highlight accomplishments—what the student has done, why she’s done it, how she did it, how she’s grown from it, and, most especially, how lives (hers and others’) have been impacted.”

In other words, a résumé represents an opportunity to collect, keep track of and reflect on accomplishments. And it’s likely to be a document the student will have to maintain, using different formats and styles, through college and beyond.

Most school-based and independent college counselors agree there’s no reason to include a résumé with a college application if it totally duplicates information contained in other parts of the application, unless of course, the school specifically asks for one. And plenty of colleges outside of the Common App system do, such as Georgetown University, Virginia Tech, Penn State and the University of Texas at Austin.

For students using the Common Application, basic extracurricular-related information may be presented in the Activities section, which provides space to describe involvement in ten activities. Within each activity, the Position/Leadership blank allows 50 characters to give a solid indication of your position and the name of the organization in which you participate.  A second box allows 150 characters to provide insight into what you’ve done and any distinctions you earned.

The Coalition provides space for extracurricular activities in the Profile section of the application. Students may enter up to eight activities and are asked to specify “the two primary activities that have taken up most of your extracurricular time during high school.” For each activity, the student is allowed 64 characters for the activity name (Cashier, Wegmans Grocery Store, located in Fairfax, Virginia), as well as 255 characters for “one brief sentence describing the primary function of this activity” and an additional 255 characters to “[L]ist any positions/honors/awards received in this activity, if any.”

Students using the Universal College Application (UCA) may enter up to seven “Extracurriculars, Personal and Volunteer Experience[s]” and up to five employers or job-related activities. Unlike either the Coalition Application or the Common Application, the UCA clearly marks how many characters are allowed for each response.

But for some students, these various activities sections are still limiting and don’t provide enough of an opportunity to showcase specific accomplishments. In this case, the applicant has a couple of options.

First, check member questions for additional opportunities to provide details about extracurricular activities. This is where some Common App members have made provisions for an upload of a fully-formatted résumé. These include:

• Boston College
• Brandeis University
• Brown University
• Carnegie Mellon University
• Claremont McKenna College*
• Colgate University (one page)
• Cornell University
• Dartmouth College
• Davidson College
• George Mason University
• George Washington University
• Johns Hopkins University
• Lafayette College
• Macalester College
• Northeastern University*
• Pomona College
• Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
• Santa Clara University
• Smith College
• Trinity College
• Tulane University
• Union College*
• University of Cincinnati
• University of North Carolina
• University of Pennsylvania
• Vanderbilt University*
• Washington University in St. Louis*

Another option is to see if the college offers an alternate application that allows for résumé uploads. For example, the UCA provides for fully-formatted résumés by allowing PDFs to be uploaded in the Additional Information section of the application.  Before going forward with this plan, however, it’s wise to check with the college first to see if they’d like a copy of your resumé as part of your application for admission. They may not!

A résumé can be a very powerful document for pushing your college candidacy forward. It can serve to color in between the lines or provide extra detail beyond what may be crammed into a standardized application form.

If given the opportunity, use it. But make sure it reflects well on you and contains accurate and up-to-date information.

*This school has also made provisions for résumé upload on the Coalition Application.
**This school does not specifically provide for résumé upload on the Coalition Application.