I agree. My D26 was feeling the same- very stuck what to write about. She thought she had come up with a topic and then when she sat down to write it just didn’t come. She left for a week-long camp related to her planned major and while she was there had an epiphany about her future and was so excited to tell me the whole story. The entire experience perfectly captured who she is as a person so I told her while the experience was fresh to write it all down like a journal entry, exactly like how she told me the story. That became her essay once she was able to see it in writing. Once it was in front of her she saw how it let the reader know about a part of her not evident in the application. Maybe they could try something like that.
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We are on a short timeline due to her fall sport which starts on August 15. She is a captain and has already been super busy all summer with that. Once the season is “official” the coach has a long list of things she has to do so she knows getting apps out before then was critical. She will also be blessed (note my sarcasm) with a brand new school counselor. I looked her up online and this is her third job in four years. I can’t even. So we also needed her to be completely finished with everything on her end so the counselor only has to do her part. Here’s hoping it all goes smoothly. There are things D26 still needs to do but can’t- like transcript requests. School is closed until August 18, they have not updated their counseling website so she can’t request official transcripts be sent to schools. Once requested it takes three weeks for the school to process. Anyway, I am rambling but you get my point 
I know this is def NOT the norm, especially around here where schools start in September and a lot of kids apply to NE SLAC, but she is insisting on southern schools where most kids are about to start school and getting those apps in early.
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I don’t have the impression this is a blanket guideline, the decision is nuanced and unique to each student (and sometimes college.) I actually hear more counselors recommending to not send if one is below the 25%ile.
Generally completely acceptable. Some AOs may answer, some won’t. I might not recommend it at all schools, like say, MIT. But Penn State? Yep.
Has he talked with his HS counselor for their advice? In the end, I would defer to your S. If he wants to send his test score and he’s at the 25%ile that’s ok.
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It’s completely appropriate to list this class in activities (similarly band, orchestra, debate, etc.) This is the perfect example of something that could be buried in the transcript where a student would like to give the admissions reader more information and ‘color.’
I agree the activities sections is the best place where he would be able to share details…the selection process, whether it was competitive, his specific activities as a mentor, how he intends to measure his impact. That sounds like a lot of points in a limited amount of space, but I recommend maxing out all the lines for each activity (there are three lines for each activity), assuming one has important points/words they want to share.
For example, in line 1, the position/leadership description (50 characters), instead of just ‘Algebra 1 Peer Mentor’, he could write something like ‘Alg 1 Peer Mentor, teacher selected, competitive process’ (or whatever is accurate)…and that frees up space in the activity description section. Abbreviations and sentence fragments allowed. College Essay guy’s site has a huge list of sample activities and ways to word them.
I’ve never even heard of ‘double-dipping’ until the last few days on a few CC threads (and I work in admissions.) Many students take classes that they also list in activities. Some clubs can be an honor and activity (e.g., NHS, where there’s a volunteer component). Some activities that might naturally be combined can be quite different and/or so time consuming they might get their own listing, e.g., an athlete who tears their ACL lists the year long rehab process separately from their sport.
Lots of ways to do things, there are no hard and fast rules. If a student wants to say something that’s important to them, they should.
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They will be using their summer experience for the supplemental essays, but not the main essay..
Some thoughts and feedback on activities, resume and additional info. For reference I have a D25 and D26. D26 is high stats with deep ECs. Counselor we are working with said she’s rarely had a student with so much relevant info to share. Much of it goes deep with advocacy awards, grants, projects, testimonies, media articles etc. We inquired about additional info in some recent tours and got mixed replies. Obviously all schools are different. Asked three selective schools about this and one was very upfront about diving deep in committee and appreciating links, resumes, additional info. One made it seem like they could open links but make sure you are really getting the student voice across versus prioritizing outside articles etc. And the third said no resume, no links and now they have no essay. Interesting….
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This is really helpful to know from an admissions standpoint, thank you!
My daughter takes a symphonic band class (all four years of high school, first clarinet junior and senior years), does jazz band during club time, and auditioned for and was selected to district band.
Could she put all of that in one space?
She’s also done marching band since 7th grade, and was woodwind section captain for 10th and 11th grades, and will be band president in 12th. She was planning to list that as two different spaces because the leadership duties for section captain and president are really different – but is that overkill?
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Yes, could combine those.
I definitely see potential value in separately listing the two leadership positions, and don’t think that would be overkill at all.
This is true for sure. IME a significant proportion of students use the additional info section, often to give more detail on an activity or two. (Note additional info now has a 300 word limit, not 650 as before.) Where I read apps, we welcome all the detail and read every word in an app (albeit quickly.) We sometimes will click on links or look up an activity/club/position, but that’s not often.
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Thank you so much for this insight. It’s hugely helpful!!
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Thank you!! This is helpful. It seems confusing at first but I think once you get into it, the student starts to figure out how and what makes sense to include where. Question about resumes. Ideally a resume shows activities etc that are different from the commons app? Or not necessarily? How does the resume fit into this whole thing? It’s an additional doc that is meant to show how a student would construct a resume in 1-2 pages. Or is it more designed unlike a traditional resume to show things otherwise not shown to the college? I think I did read somewhere not to include things like gpa, courses or test scores as school already have that obviously. Maybe overthinking it here but also want to make sure things aren’t repeated. But having an actual resume formatted like a resume and purposefully excluding imported things mentioned in the activities seems odd too. I was also taught to list items on a resume in order of date not importance so there’s that aspect too. Whereas the activities is by importance. 
For resumes, I recommend only sending resumes to schools that ask for them/strongly encourage them, like U Texas. In those cases, I would follow the resume format the school asks for (there are tons of online resources for U Texas sample resumes, for example.)
If the kid is doing a resume for awards and/or scholarship apps, I would do that like a traditional resume and include school, GPA, activities, etc. So that would be redundant to the common app in many ways (including same activities.) With that said, I wouldn’t hesitate to send that resume to colleges that at some point might allow a student to upload a resume to the portal, if your kid wants to do that.
Keep it simple, no need for most students to have multiple resumes. I think this is why most schools (it seems like most?) don’t want a resume because of the redundancy. I don’t even know how a kid could create a resume with no activities that overlap with the common app!
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Thank you. We won’t overthink it. Student currently has 20 schools on her list - getting it down. She has a mix of highly selective, targets and safeties. 16 out of the 20 will take a resume. So it is a lot. Some that come to mind that don’t are Harvard, Columbia, UVA and Duke. All other ivies do. Also BC, BU, UNC, Emory, NW, Mich, Vandy, GW, Maryland, Clemson take them. So there are a lot that are taking them!
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Good intel on the resumes. This could be a good reason for your kid to reach out to their AO, basically asking what they want on the resume (assuming that info is not on the school’s website!) Just because they will take them though, doesn’t tell us much about how important they may be in the decision making process.
So true! Thank you again! We definitely took the opportunity to ask about in on a recent college tour trip. Was so glad we did bc you get some really good insights when you ask directly and it does vary.
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We may be doing that too, for the same reason: the transcript doesn’t tell the full story. My thinking is that there are a lot of courses (e.g., yearbook, choir, band, etc.) that are also considered activities. Although now that I am thinking about it, maybe the additional info section is the better place to include this information…
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As my kids would say, ngl, 
I am giddy right now. S26 asked me during dinner if I could help him trim his activities’ descriptions on the Common App because 150 words seems so short. He’s typing away right beside me right now 
. Who knew all he needed was a realization that he has just 2 days before a very hectic band season and senior year??! 
. Nevermind that he had all summer, of course! 
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I would be giddy too. But alas, D26 is watching TV. She managed to knock out 5 activities. Looked at one supplemental essay prompt and promptly declared she was done for the day.
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That’s 5 less that she has to do!
S26 got most of the Common App general info done except for a few things. When he clicked on each college and saw all the info he still has to type in, he was like, “bruh…” 
And he was done for the day too. 
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OMGosh, we did this today, too! Although not because my kid asked me – because I woke her up at like 2pm and said, “GET UP, if you’re not going to do your AP Lit work, then you are going to knock out your activities and awards on the Common App (insert expletive here).”
It worked – 9 are done (with my sitting beside her and helping with wording – seriously, 150 characters is ridiculous). She’s still waffling between 2 really minor activities for the last spot, or she might just leave it alone. Awards are done, too.
Personal statement is sooo close, just needs a small bit revised.
In other news, the first app she needs to get in is Ga Tech, but as she was going through her chosen major today to get ideas for the supplemental essay, she decided to pivot and apply for a different major instead. Still related to her overall goal, but a different path. We then went through and looked at all the class requirements for the new major, and yeah, it’s a lot more up her alley. (She was close to taking Tech off her list, but now she’s keeping it. And the “why this major, and why this major at Tech” essay is suddenly a lot more clear.)
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While killing time browsing through Target & Walmart waiting for D26’s shift to end this evening, I saw some packs of high school seniors in the wild. Some out of each pack were wearing pool floaties. Thanks to a coworker, I was already aware that this is part of the senior assassin game, where apparently if you wear a pool floatie, then you are immune from getting hit. 
To all of this, D26 said, “That’s stupid. They look super dumb.”
Meanwhile, D26 thinks that the people watching while working at Walmart is almost as good as people watching at the airport or at Disneyland. 
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