<p>I wrote over 20 rough drafts of essays in preparation for my application. Right now I'm in the process of deciding which ones to use and editing them. One of them, which I really like, is about an extracurricular activity, my volunteer work backstage at a local community theater. At first I thought I could just use that essay for my activity essay, but there are two main problems: 1. The rough draft is about 5, 389 characters (including spaces) compared to the 1,000 character limit, and 2. My volunteer work at the theater was meaningful, but it only lasted one summer because the theater stopped producing plays, so it's been sometime since I actually participated in this activity. Because of this, I am not sure if it's important enough to go at the top of my list or to write my essay on. </p>
<p>I'm also not sure how to order my activities. I know it's in order of importance to me, but should time matter at all? Should the #1 activity be whatever was most important to me at the time (whether I am still doing it or not) or what is most important to me right now? </p>
<p>Any thoughts? Should I pick a different activity to write about, or do you think this essay could be made to work?</p>
<p>I think you should put it anyway. The prompt just says to elaborate on one of your activities this could be which one you think needs a little clarifying or about which one you have a story to tell. As for if you should put it on the top of your list you’re the only one that can decide that.</p>
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<p>I think you should put what is most important to you now. You have the whole picture of everything you’ve done since freshman year up until now, what EC’s are you most proud of? </p>
<p>Few last minute things: Honestly, I wrote about this reserve I went to save baby turtles, even though I only did the activity once I’ve been participating with the program since then. The experience I had there was amazing and thought it was worthy of an essay. Just keep in mind, there are other parts of your application you can talk about the local community theater experience if you really want to include it.</p>
<p>Op,
Your essay can be about anything, it does not even have to be about an extracurricular activity or a recent event. My D wrote an essay on independence and being a child of a 2 working parent household and included events when she was 4 years old. I saw that you are interested in theater and english, thus an essay about theater would work, but the bottom line is that you have to <em>show, not tell</em> your personality through your essay. If that is best done with an essay on theater, then go for it. BTW, egads, shorter essays are better. Imagine adcom reading 30 essays per day, day in and day out. Tighten that thing up.</p>
<p>As for the order of your ECs, you should list them in such a way that an adcom, when skimming them, makes sense. Thus, remove extraneous ECs, group your ECs in theater and english related ones, and list them in groups. Then sprinkle in other ECs that were also important to you at the bottom.</p>