SoundOfSilence

Hey guys,

As I'm sure you're all aware, one of the responses on the Princeton Supplement asks you to

"Please tell us how you have spent the last two summers (or vacations between school years), including any jobs you have held, if not already detailed on the Common Application."

Anyways, I'm having a bit of trouble in approaching this one. My question is: being that I took part in 5 or 6 distinct summer activities throughout the past two summers (and been very involved in each one), should I give each of them equal space within the 2500 allotted characters, or - since I can most likely give sufficient elaboration on 4-5 within the space provided on the activities section of the Common App - use the space to write a more focused, more creative piece regarding only one or two of the activities I spent the most time/effort on, leaving description of the rest for the two lines/activity provided on the CommonApp? In addition, is the latter path even allowed? I would think so, given that any activity listed on the CommonApp is more or less "detailed," but I'm not sure if the admissions office wants applicants to clarify exactly which CommonApp "activities" were "summer activities" by listing all summer activities on the Supplement even if they were mentioned as "activities" on the CommonApp.

theeightyeight

If you were very involved with all 5 or 6 of these activities, I would try to find a creative link between all of them. Cause if you were very involved, I don't think a single line in the Common App would be enough to describe it.

That said, either approach is fine. Another option is to elaborate on these summer activities in the additional info session.

I'm applying too! Goodluck!

SoundOfSilence

thanks; I just realized my original post was kind of rambling haha. and I guess I'll just have to think about it a bit more - 2500 words is definitely not enough!

GetExcited

2500 characters***

gibby

^^ which is about 400 words!

SoundOfSilence

my mistake! 2500 characters*

altolove

On that note, i have a question as well: should we actually make an effort to write this like a creative essay? Or do they just want a little bit more information that can be written in several sentences?

gibby

This essay isn't something you should be stressing about. It can be as long or short as you want it to be. My son was accepted to Princeton two years ago by writing two sentences for this essay:

"Last summer, I attended Georgetown University and took a Media Computing course for college credit. The summer before that, I was a camp counselor at the JCC in Manhattan."

See! It's that easy!

SoundOfSilence

Here's another question I have:

Say I partook in one main summer activity throughout all 4 high-school summer vacations. If I were to focus on that one activity in my 2500 character discussion, would it be acceptable to focus the majority of my descriptive paragraphs on what I did for/learned from that activity in this past summer (during which I was between 11th and 12th grades) and then more or less state that the same applies to the past 3 summers (which obviously includes the earlier of the "last two summers" asked for by the prompt), or would I be judged unfavorably for not dedicating equal parts to both the 2011 and 2012 summers?

Cantiger

My son did not use all the characters available on the application for this portion. I don't think it's necessary to write an essay - they just want a few sentences about how you spent your time. Again, admissions is trying to get to know you. How do you spend your time when you have discretionary time? SoundOfSilence I don't think it's that they would look unfavourably on spending the time on a significant event in one summer and not another, but what did you do with your time the other summer? We included family vacations, competitive sports events, practice time etc. Those sorts of things aren't negatives. I think they could be seen as a person who wisely makes time for rest and recreation.