<p>You know the one about the meaningful activity? How do we answer it? Straight on? As a mini-essay? Should it be more what we did or how it affected us?</p>
<p>I think it would be difficult to try to make a "and this is the moral of the story" essay out of it, because it's supposed to be 150 words...I think I'm probably going to write about my main club (literary magazine) and explain more about how it works, the duties I have as editor-in-chief, and some of our traditions.</p>
<p>I approached this essay as another chance to tell the adcoms something new about me not said elsewhere in my application. So instead of listing off all the things I did in my club/activity, I elaborated on one or two specifically, and the meaning I saw in them. A lot of clubs are universal, like a lot of experiences presented in essays. Loads of people are in chess club or Key club or play an instrument. It's about showing your passion, and how the club/activity has affected you, I think, that's important in this one.</p>
<p>So for example, should I write about playing piano and what it means to me and how it makes me feel? or should I write about like literary magazine and what my duties are throughout the year?</p>
<p>My essay for this is pretty weird. A standard approach to the question (which is not bad) is one described in Post #2. However, I decided against convention and made my sort of like an essay. Its about tutoring someone I did as community service, and its basic outline is like this:</p>
<ol>
<li>Anecdote about tutoring a particular kid </li>
<li>Described how I feel about it and what I learned from it</li>
</ol>
<p>Its a pretty weird essay that doesn't completely explain the circumstances (there was no enough words to do), and I never explicitly say what my activity is until the last 50 words, so I'm not sure if that is good either. Does any one have any thoughts about this? </p>
<p>Another qualm about it is that I feel that I don't focus enough on me, but that instead I am focusing too much on the kid I was tutoring. But the idea is to describe an activity you participated in, so like my thoughts are kind of ambivalent. SO like Post #1, I would like to know how personal to make it.</p>
<p>Classof09, I would stick with Piano because its more personal and I think more personal essays is what adcoms want.</p>
<p>Colly: If you can make your essay about the literary magazine about your abilities as a leader or how you approach the duties of an editor-in-chief, I'd go for that.</p>
<p>Just a note, you can go with anything you've done as long as you can find a way to make it truthfully anecdotal. I even wrote about how some Internet activities are legitimate ECs. If you can find something, run with it. Write from the heart, then with the head.</p>