I’ve been trying to be a diligent student and work on college apps, but the main issue I’m facing is that I don’t know how to frame myself. The first problem is my intended major – a double in bioengineering and economics, which on its own isn’t easy to explain.
Then there’s the matter of ECs and accomplishments. The issue here is that throughout high school, I’ve hopped from activity to activity because I’m interested in too much. My ECs range from speech and debate, writing for econ and law journals, and social justice work, to music composition, visual art, and creative writing, to biophysics and medical research. I don’t know what to include in my application, or how much to include. Should I just pick two or three of those interests and build my story around those, or should I include everything I’ve done? My fears are that if I do include everything, the range of activities will dilute my meaningful accomplishments and make me a confusing applicant for an admissions officer to understand.
On top of this, my personal circumstances – I’m a primary caretaker for two ill parents.
So – what does one do? Any input is appreciated!
Unless you want to take six years for a Bachelors, I can’t imagine trying to double major in bioengineering and econ and doing a credible job at either major. I don’t think you’d have any room in your schedule for the other things you’re interested in if you take on two challenging majors.
Hugs to you for being caretaker to your parents. That must be very challenging.
My aim was to apply to Columbia ED, and if accepted, matriculate into the either 3-2 or 2-3 program, with 3 years in the engineering school and two in the college of arts and sciences, or vice versa, finishing both degrees in five years. Do you think this is feasible? Many of the other colleges I’m applying to have similar programs.
I was in the same situation as you for a couple of years! I later went more into depth with physics, but since half my high school career was spent hopping around as well, I’d suggest you focus on your character growth in the CommonApp. Maybe try to explain how your being exposed to different fields has developed your perspective? You probably shouldn’t inundate your app with everything you’ve done; you sound like you have some impressive achievements, “writing for econ and law journals”, specifically. I’d recommend listing your more stand-out ones on the extracurriculars section, and maybe discussing the less “impressive” but particularly meaningful ones in your essays.
You could combine some of your activities into categories. For example, say you started in speech and debate, but realized what you most enjoyed about those activities was the writing. So you then proceeded to do some creative writing and later on ended up writing for the journals. It shows an overall theme with progression and increasing challenge.
I’ve been looking at the title of your post for a couple of days and wincing at the idea you would want to “brand” yourself. Your post itself doesn’t really read that way, but if that’s how you are thinking, please stop. What comes through from your post is that you are a person of diverse interests and intellectual curiousity - that’s a good thing, and presumably what you’ve been doing makes sense to you and there’s a reason why you might want to combine bioengineering and economics (my husband is an economist and has been working with colleagues in the medical department of his university on issues relating to genome theory, so it’s not really that crazy an idea). @themaskedbandicoot has given you some good suggestions on how you might be able to present the “whole you” in a way that will be coherent. I think you would be making a big mistake if you try to repackage yourself as something other than (and less interesting than) who you really are. Better to spend your time thinking how to tell your real story.