If you or your kid had an activity that you do a lot during certain periods of the year, and a smaller amount during other periods, how do you list the hours?
An example would be a summer job that was 30 hours a week for 10 weeks, that led to a school year position that was 2 hours a week, with about 8 weeks off.
So, does he write it as 30 hours a week at 10 weeks, or 7 hours a week for the whole year, or 8 hours for 44 weeks?
I feel like the 7 or 8 hour a week number feels inaccurate, because it either sounds like a not very serious summer job, or it sounds like a kid who is super committed during the school year and managing to find a lot of hours, which he wasn’t.
With that said, I can’t speak to how all AOs are going to interpret this year’s answers.
Obviously, it is perfectly reasonable to follow the directions and record hours during the busiest time. No matter what your kid chooses, I would encourage them to include more hourly/week details in the verbiage in whatever section it fits (there are three questions where one could conceivably work in these details…the description, the org, the role.)
Thank you! Is that new? I feel like that’s not how it looked when my oldest applied.
This is going to look really weird for my kid, who has several activities with peaks and valleys, because the totals will add up for a weekly average that will be crazy high, because the busiest weeks don’t overlap.
It’s going to look strange for most applicants, IMO. Many activities have dramatic differences in time per week when looking at busiest week to less busy weeks. I don’t know why this change was made.
So, students are left with the decision to follow directions, or have their time look really high for the entirety of the commitment, with potentially no additional context. It is never wrong to follow the directions.
Would you happen to know - when common app makes changes like this, does that arise because of feedback from colleges about what they want to see? Or is it just something they decide?
All of the above! I’m not sure how this particular change came to be though. This change seems confusing to me, many kids will be showing 50+ hours per week in EC commitments, if they follow directions and only show peak hours.
My kids will show way more than 50 hours. In addition to the aforementioned job one of them does sound got his high school, he works at the assembly for like minutes each week setting up the microphone, and then during tech week and show week for the play he is at school an extra 30-40 hours a week. With the job that’s 60 hours of activities, and he has other things to add.
I don’t see how this helps them distinguish. I have one kid who does a sport every day year round. His brother plays a sport at a rec level one hour long practice, one game. But they both spend a week at a full time camp, so I guess they will both show as 40 hours even though the intensity with which they do the sport is entirely different.
I hear you, I’m not sure how AOs/readers are going to think about this. More concerningly, there is likely to be variability how AOs assess this section.
It’s not dissimilar to what happened last year with the responsibilities and circumstances section…the guidance there is to check those activities if one spends 4+ hours per week. But, unless the applicant also puts said activity in their activities section, readers have no idea how long the applicant had that responsibility, or their total hours per week. I can say with certainty there is variability how readers/schools assess this section.
I think the Adcom’s are humans in addition to reading applications.
They understand that the estimates are going to be fluid; they are NOT trying to have kids account for every single minute in a 24 hour day, 365 days a year. They are just trying to distinguish between the “I help the residents with dinner at a nursing home two hours a week” volunteer and “I am one of two primary caregivers for a disabled parent” students.
And they also understand that being on an winning HS football team is more time consuming than playing in a recreational golf league for a few weeks during the summer.
So kids should do their best to accurately name their activities and provide a “reasonably accurate” estimate of their time commitment. And then not worry about it. Nobody gets rejected from college because they had 200 volunteer hours at a local hospital but another kid had 225!
Agree, this is a weird change IMO too. not an AO but I think MANY kids have activities where peek weeks are HUGELY time consuming-- drama kids, dance kids, robotics kids, Model UN kids, certain sports kids (especially those with travel), etc. etc. Basically anything with all day competitions/tournaments/performances, which is a lot? These all have at least a few weeks a year with a truly staggering amount of hours..
