<p>My D is now working on a Personal Essay for an RD school. She is focussing on her interest in newspapers and desire for a career in journalism, relating this to her academic interests and cultural background --this fits well with one of the prompts provided on the app. She also has to write a Short Answer on her most meaningful extracurricular activity. Her most meaningful activity has been her two internships at newspapers, but this is already incorporated in the personal statement.</p>
<p>So, should she
A) give more details about the achievements during the internships in the Short Answer? OR</p>
<p>B) describe a secondary interest in theater in the Short Answer to balance the app? Theater is not a passion for her but has been a longtime, ongoing enjoyable hobby.</p>
<p>D has received various forms of recognition for her wiriting, whereas theater is more something she does for fun.</p>
<p>Write the personal essay on her theater experience, explaining that it is not her passion but that she likes to stretch herself and that she has found enjoyment in it.</p>
<p>Write the short statement about her internships, stressing that journalism is her passion.</p>
<p>There is no single answer; it depends on what the overall approach of the application.</p>
<p>My daughter had a similar situation to what you have decribed for the interest she wanted to feature on her app.</p>
<p>She used the “most meaningful activity” short answer to provide the “facts”. Specifically, she described three different, but related, stages of participation in her activity, each with just a short three or four sentence paragragh concluding with something learned at that stage. This served the purpose of linking three different activities in three different years into a related continuum, culminating in the final, most advanced stage – which was a big step up in the degree of challenge. So, while the earlier stages were nothing remarkable or unusual by themselves, they made sense in the context of a high schooler moving in a natural progression to more challenging pursuits.</p>
<p>In her personal statement, she then wrote about an experience that took place during that final year’s activity. Because “the facts” had been covered elsewhere, she could focus more closely on making that essay a personal story without having to get bogged down setting the stage, describing the program, etc. This essay served to bring the activity to life, hopefully telling a story that would bring the reader into the experience and sense a little bit about her.</p>
<p>So, in her case, she used the two essays to complement each other. This approach seemed to work pretty well as it gave two opportunities to communicate a number of bits of information. This approach probably works best for what I call the “one-trick pony” application where you are trying to build a clear, unmistakable identity in one specific area. A different approach would probably work better for someone trying to highly two different interests. However, you can still “bullet-point” a second activity with this approach by starting the “most meaningful activity” essay with something like, “Although nothing could match the excitement of competing in the state math competition, my most meaningful activity in terms of personal growth was…”</p>
<p>marite, interesteddad, thanks. She is leaning towards the “although nothing could match…” solution.</p>
<p>Do you think it is OK if the theater comments highlight why theater has been personally meaningful to overall development rather than imply that she will devote most of her time in college to theater activities? In truth, she will most likely put her extracurric hours into the school newspaper.</p>
<p>pyewacket, I think her approach sounds good–to discuss how theater has been important to her overall development. Something CAN help a person to grow without being one’s passion, and that sounds like a great way to show another side of her, without implying things that aren’t true.</p>
<p>These less central essays can be written sometimes in a less formal tone, and therefore in many ways can be more revealing. Someone as focused as your D benefits from also revealing she is willing to do something just for fun, maybe even be less than great at it. That she is, at the end of the day, a regular kid. Or that she is happy in the spotlight as well as writing about others in the spotlight. So I vote also for having some fun writing about theater. </p>
<p>Don’t even have to do the “Nothing could match the thrill”. After all, life does have a fairly large random component and adreps know it too.</p>
<p>Pyewacket:
Yes, it’s absolutely okay to highlight that theater has been a great source of joy in her life without suggesting that she will devote her energies to it once in college.</p>
<p>I recall fondly the lighthearted essay by raspberrysmoothie in which she discussed her almost inadvertent involvement in jogging. I suspect her intention was to leaven her probably very serious application with a dose of humor. My seriously lopsided S wrote two essays that had nothing to do with his passion. He wanted to show that he was capable of being interested in something other than math. A student, however, whose own passion does not come across as clearly in the rest of the application (e.g. transcript, recs) might want to adopt the “one trick pony” approach described by interesteddad.</p>
<p>pyewacket, I will always wonder how the adreps (go, Alu–for the new term) viewed my D’s essays. </p>
<p>Her personal statement was very personal and had NOTHING to do with ECs or passions. However, I think it did a good job of thumbnailing her to a total stranger, displaying her unique take on things, her thinking and her personality. </p>
<p>The EC essay was on music, which was genuinely her favorite EC… even though she was a recruited athlete and would never be a recruited musician. That essay was good and it showed a kid capable of loving something passionately (which may be every bit as important at being highly accomplished.)</p>
<p>I think the general rule would be to think seriously about the 2-3 things she’d really like an anonymous adrep to know about her (could be personality facets, past experiences, skills, whatever) then choose the essay topics that allow those things to come across best.</p>