<p>Hello everyone. I just have a quick question about the way that activities should be divided on the app. Throughout high school, the largest portion of my extracurricular activity has been choir, and I am currently in four vocal ensembles. On the common app, there is a drop down in which "Music: Vocal" is an option. Should I group all of my ensembles into one, and explain them in the details section, or would it be better to provide a separate entry for each?</p>
<p>One more question. One of the ensembles I am a part of is a class. Still, it involves significant commitments outside of school (i.e. community performances, contests, rehearsals). Should I list only the hours that take place outside of class? Thanks!</p>
<p>Here is a personalized extension of the question that was originally asked about “Activity Division”:</p>
<p>I am part of my Korean Youth Group (raised $32,000 ever since I was in the club and raised a combined total of ~$9,000 from the events I personally have coordinated since 9th grade) and I have contacted other local Korean churches to unite together to help one organization back in South Korea. I personally have contacted local city legislators (one for which I helped run for city council in a campaign internship) who have helped us support Korean culture initiatives in the city (such as publicizing events outside of the church communities and who has officially announced a “Korean Day Parade” - the 1st kind in the city. Streets had to be closed as we were walking down a major city avenue.) I have raised the membership AND involvement of the youth group about 400% percent (literally, we have 4-5x the amount of members and 10x the involvement and initiative ever since I took action.) I also went to Korean school (combined with religion courses taught in Korean), learned how to read and write (although haven’t taken a proficiency exam.) Schools took place in my church. I hold seminars primarily for church members but open to everyone to discuss Koreans assimilating into American culture but still keeping true to their identities (inviting many key note speakers and sociologists in the field of linguistics and culture and often times the open discussions get really in depth and as many as 20 people show up for each session…so its a pretty “legit” thing…). But the youth group, the korean school and the seminars can fall under THREE different activities and not everything I do is a clear cut activity. It is WHAT i did with these positions. It’s not that I’m stating I was just “president and helped organize” but (as you can tell from this lengthy paragraph) I have a lot to say because I got a lot done.</p>
<p>MY QUESTION: Can’t I just place all this “stuff” under one category: name it “Korean Culture Community Involvement” or do I separate it into “Youth Group”, “Korean School” … I feel as though if i clump it up, it would just look like I was trying too hard to “pad my resume” but if i divide it, it won’t get the desired effect that I did all these activities basically in MY church and hence am VERY involved in this ONE institution: my church and through the church community was able to become more connected to my culture…</p>
<p>I had the same problem for my piano playing. What i did was group all my piano-related extracirriculars under music: instrumental, used the 90-character word box to list all my acitivities (Piano Exams and Recitals; Piano for School Orchestra, School Choir, and Church for community service), and then elaborated on each activity with a sentence or two in the additional informations box under the writing section.</p>