I participated in a super prestigious week-long summer program last year and am planning to list the experience at the top of my activities list. I was wondering what category I should list the program under, and how many hours I should put down (should I count the nighttime hours in sleeping? my flights?) any advice?
No to night time - if it was 5 days, 8 hours a day, then say it was that.
What type was it? List it as that.
PS - If you’ve done stuff for years - sports, band, work, etc. I can’t imagine a week long program could be more impactful to your app - unless it was something ground breaking, etc. So you might really re-think that. Prestigious in your eyes or through their marketing likely doesn’t over shadow something you might have done for years. As they may only glance or look at the top, you might really rethink your order. What you feel impacted you the most is what you should go with and in 99.9% of cases I would take tenure and responsibility/impact over one week.
If you walked dogs at the shelter, played in the band, helped at the library - whatever - I have to think they are more impactful if you had tenure and impact.
Good luck.
Academic
Art
Athletics: Club
Athletics: JV or Varsity
Career-oriented
Community Service (Volunteer)
Computer/Technology
Cultural
Dance
Debate/Speech
Environmental
Family Responsibilities
Foreign Exchange
Internship
Journalism/Publication
Junior R.O.T.C.
LGBT
Musical: Instrumental
Musical: Vocal
Religious
Research
Robotics
School Spirit
Science/Math
Social Justice
Student Govt./Politics
Theater/Drama
Work (Paid)
Other Club/Activity
Fine to list the week-long program since it is obviously meaningful to you. Your choice how to categorize the program. Only count the hours where you were awake and doing work/activities related to the program (a typical work week is 40 hours or so so guessing it should be in that range).