Expressing Discontinued/Partial ECs

Parents Forum
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<p>Hi, parents. This is a college application question, but I thought I’d get more responses from people who had actually gone through the application process (i.e., with their children) if I posted it here. So, can you please help me?</p>

<p>I’m writing my resume, and trying to classify and describe my extracurricular activities. The first problem is that some of them I no longer do, but they fall under the umbrella of a larger EC, and I want my application to reflect that. For example, since I’m interested in theatre, I took swing-dancing lessons for six months last year. I want to express this as a sort of supplement to the theater programs, even though I’m no longer doing it. Should I try and insert a note showing this?</p>

<p>Some of my ECs I’ve been in since before high school; is the “PS” on the Common App for pre-(high) school, or post school?</p>

<p>Also, I’m in an “independent” EC that is very important to me: I write. I’ve never won any awards, or honors, so would “independent writing” be appropriate for this category?</p>

<p>Finally, some of my ECs aren’t year-round, for example, the Chemistry team. Is there any way to show this? I don’t want to be dishonest, or have my hours exceed that which are possible because I did different activities at different times!</p>

<p>I’ve copied and pasted the EC section of my resume here for clarification; if there’s anything else you can see that I’ve screwed up on, please tell me!</p>

<p>Thanks. :)</p>

<p>Math and Science:
Research on mosquito repellents, 5 years, 3 hours/week (plus class time)
-In high school:
-Second place, Environmental category, regional science fair (9th grade)
-Fourth place, Environmental category, regional science fair (10th grade)
Chemistry competition team, 1 year, 1.5 hours/week
-Won first place for written portion at Chem-a-thom
-Member of team which placed first in the quiz bowl and first overall
Math team, 6 years
-In high school:
-Member of team which placed first in quiz bowl in 9th grade (Geometry)
-Member of team which placed second in written portion in 10th grade (Algebra II)</p>

<p>Humanities:
Church handbell choir, 5 years, 1 hour/week
Swing dance lessons, 6 months, 1 hour/week
Drama performances, 2 years, 4 hours/week
Independent writing, life, 7 hours/week</p>

<p>Leadership/Service:
National Honor Society, 2 years, 1 hour/week
Treasurer, 1 year
Teen Advisory Program (library steering committee) 1 year, 1 hour/week
Church council? (maybe)
Peace Pipes (church youth group), 2 years, 1.5 hour/week </p>

<p>(Our youth group does a lot of service projects, which is why I included it. Also, it’s pretty important to me).</p>

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<p>Willow - this is how I would recommend my child do it. The order of the categories is a guess (and not my best guess) on my part, what you consider to be the most important should go first:</p>

<p>Research:
Mosquito repellants done at X…</p>

<p>Activities/Leadership:
Math team X years,
Team won regional first place in 9th,
Team won regional 2nd place in 10th
Chemistry team (and so on, listing any TEAM placements or wins that are at a local/regional level, not just withing the high school
NHS Treasurer
Teen Advisory Program
Drama and dance …
Independent writing</p>

<p>Awards: (this is where I would put the individual awards, like science fair) </p>

<p>Service:
I would put all the church stuff here, with a brief description, especially of the service projects - providing handbell music is not something that benefits you as much as it provides a service (music for worship) to your church, my daughter spent years in the youth choir, that went here, as well as all those nursing home trips, acolyting, etc - you may need to do some lumping and culling, the idea is not a laundry list of what you did, it is more to show a measure of commitment and ability to carry through with something long term.</p>

<p>The important things about the activity list are honesty, brevity (something that always gets overlooked), and accentuating the meatiest and most unusual activities. For example, you say independent writing is very important to you, but you haven’t won any external awards for it - that’s OK, what if you wrote about things you didn’t really want to share with strangers - you need to write about your writing either in one of the short answers, or additional material sections. This will be a tricky short answer, but the idea is for you to show that it is an important use of your time, and that you have benefitted from it as a person and/or as a student, even if there are external awards to show for it. If you don’t do some fleshing out the writing, then it is at risk of looking like resume padding. If youth group service projects have meant a lot to you,describe that as well.</p>

<p>Some activites are best listed only in terms of time - for example, my daughter acolyted at o</p>

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<p>Adcoms appreciate people who don’t inflate hours. Although Katherine Cohen’s books gave me the heebie jeebies, do take a good look at her Brag Sheets Before and After.<br>
Everyone is in things like National Honor Society, so just list, 'nuff said on them and all things like them. In our school, Beta Club never even met one time for instance. Expand on Passions…Research, Dramatic Arts and related lessons…things that might lead to ways you will make your college a more colorful and interesting place.</p>