<p>Some awards are just kind of wordy- for the five awards that go in the academic section, do I really have to spell out every single acronym? Or are there some that need no explication? These are the acronyms I plan on using:
1. ISEF
2. FBLA
3. ACT-SO
4. NFL (forensics, not football)</p>
<p>Do you think colleges will be familiar with these or should I be on the safe side and spell them out?</p>
<p>Spell them out, unless they don’t fit when you print preview.</p>
<p>No. Absolutely not, they will not know what you’re talking about. An admissions officer told us at an info session about an applicant who was “founder and president of his school’s PCJS club (or some other acronym, don’t remember exactly what it was) and put 500 hours worth of work into it, did all kinds of great things, etc…” Ultimately the admissions committee had no clue what PCJS was and it didn’t contribute anything to his application. I don’t remember if she said he was admitted or not. Moral of the story is ASSUME NOTHING because if they don’t know, they won’t go looking to find the answer. It’s up to you to make clear what you’re trying to get across.</p>
<p>Thanks, y’all!
(Wow, my latent Texan is emerging :P)</p>
<p>Of those you listed, FBLA was the only one I knew.</p>
<p>The only one I knew was NFL.</p>
<p>Quick question, though- is it okay if I just put “NAACP” in the title of one of my awards? Because it is definitely NOT going to fit if I spell it out.</p>
<p>I think NAACP is fine.</p>
<p>It is interesting with “list of honors” vs “list of activities.” With honors, you could just list the name of award, but there is no place to describe what the award was, so sometimes it is better to list it as an activity because there is a description line for activity. </p>
<p>As an example, D2 was selected out of hundreds of students to participate in a summer program (not TASP, but more at a state level program). It was an honor to be selected, but the program was not so well known that every adcom would know what it was. By listing it in the activities section would allow D2 to describe it more fully what the program was, and how selective it was.</p>
<p>@oldfort Sounds kind of like the Georgia Governor’s Honors Program. As a recent participant I was wondering where to mention it (It was truly life-changing). If I end up writing an essay on the program though, would it be redundant to place it under activites and describe it?</p>
<p>A state’s Governor School is fairly well known to most adcoms. My kid’s program was similar to a Governor School, but it was very particular to that state. Many colleges in the NE know about the program, but not so much outside of the region. I think in the case of Governor School, listing it under Honor should be fine. My older daughter did Governor School few years ago, and she listed under Honors.</p>