rocksolid

well i am an international students with green card, i studied four years on America's public high school. I am living with my father and my father is often busy. The school in our district do not offer late buses. So i don't have a choice on the extracurricular activities. when i finally got a car my senior year, i spend a lot of after school going to the gym lifting weights. does that count as an extracurricular activate? Today when i looked at the common app's activities page i got burned, there is also an short answer on activities. well i do bodybuilding but its not an organization thing. is it better to leave it blank or should i write the short answer about bodybuilding.

Buttafly13

I would definitely use bodybuilding; it is what you spend your free time on.

Jane345

Do NOT leave that short answer blank!

Do you do anything else on weekends? Community service, church-related activities, etc. Do you help with the household that you and your father live in, in an unusual way? For example, do you do ALL the cleaning or cooking, manage bills or grocery shopping? Do you care for or tutor younger siblings? Do you have any individual activities such as writing, art, music, etc that you do, even if they aren't done via an organization.

You could talk about the bodybuilding in the EC short answer space, but you might want to write in some depth in the Addtional Information essay about why you don't participate in organized activities outside of school, and talk about what you DO do with your time when you aren't in school. And do you belong to any clubs or groups that meet during the school day??? I'm guessing you need to think a little bit more creatively about what you do with your time, and how to include that in your applications.

Jane345

OP: Here is what you posted elsewhere on another forum, so now I'm confused.


chance me(first year transfer)

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current school: university of alabama school of engineering(undecided major)
first semester GPA 3.5(with 15 units)
assume i get a 3.8 second semester(with 18 units)
EC: teacher assistance is high school, engineering club in college, deans list
sat:1620/2400, 1230/1600
hs. 3.35 gpa
letters of rec: amazing letter from my english teacher
hooks: i am not a native english speaker, great personal statement( how i overcame every obstacles in life, and never satisfied for my past performances), upward trend

i am applying for school of engineering
here are my laundry list of schools:
usc
University of Virginia
Wake Forest University
Tufts University
University of Michigan--Ann Arbor
University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill
Boston College
New York University
Brandeis University
Case Western Reserve University
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
University of Miami
University of Washington
Worcester Polytechnic Institute

and an additional question- is the school list sounds ridiculous because of my high school and sat grades( my father always tell me that i have no chance at any of those schools)

fishcakes

Well, since you have nothing else to fill it out with, you might as well write about bodybuilding. Something is better than nothing .