The class is an AP Economics course that I am taking this year and is taught at my high school, but I was prompted to pay a local college to earn credits for their baseline economic class with the completion of the AP class. Sorry for previous confusion.
Thanks
@Axlevision22 -Thanks for the clarification. Will this class be listed on your high school transcript along with all your other classes? If you’re not sure, ask your guidance counselor, but I expect that it will be.
Because it’s an AP class and taught at your high school, not on a college campus, it shouldn’t be listed on your applications under College/University Classes, but it’s no big deal that you put it there. Students make this mistake all the time and the college folks understand the confusion. So don’t worry about sending a correction if you listed it improperly, AS LONG AS THE CLASS WILL BE ON YOUR HIGH SCHOOL TRANSCRIPT, too. (If it’s not on your high school transcript, then you SHOULD send an email to all your colleges that says exactly what you said here … i.e., that you took AP Economics at your high school but listed it as a college class because you paid your local college to earn credit from them for taking it.)
Thanks so much; the class will be listed on my transcript. You’ve relieved me from so much anxiety.
When I filled out my UC application I hadn’t made my varsity soccer team for senior year yet. When I submitted my application, it didn’t have my Dec to Feb 12th grade varsity soccer for 12 weeks 10 hours per week. I only have 2 other activities for 12th grade NHS 2 hrs per week 34 weeks and Leadership crew 1 HR per week 34 weeks. They only allow listing 5 extracurlar activities. Listed in my 5 activities I had Varsity Soccer Team Manager for 11th and JV Soccer MVP for 10th. I was injured before the start of soccer season 11th grade so I was the team manager and went to every practice and game. If I emailed admissions I would want to say that I was so excited about being able to play soccer my senior yeat that I missed the “goal” of putting 12th grade activity on my application. Since they only allow 5 activities and I would like more 12th grade activities shown, I would want to ask if they could amend the Varsity Soccer Team Manager to Varsity Soccer Team Participation (which I should have thought to do in the first place) and add 12th grade to years participated. Starting midfielder 12th grade. Team Manager 11th. I also have club soccer on my application for 9th, 10th, 11th but was badly injured before HS soccer season 11th grade.
Please advise if you think this is big enough to correct given I looked light on 12th grade activities but a lot of soccer represented in earlier years. Thank you in advance for your help.
@Jdsoccer10 -If you’re not a recruited athlete, then playing varsity soccer is not going to offer you a “hook” in the admission process, BUT admission officials do view team sports as a worthwhile use of your time and also appreciate the large chunk of time that such participation requires. So you definitely SHOULD email your colleges to add the varsity soccer to your applications. So go ahead and do what you said here you want to do.
Thank you for your answer. Would the fact that stated in one of my essays that I made the Varsity soccer team this year mean that I might not need to send a correction? But of course the essay doesn’t say 12 weeks 10 hours per week. One of my essays was around overcoming a major injury two times but learning new goals and keeping focused on my grades so I got to end with making varsity team because I had just made it, but didn’t think about changing my activities section to reflect upcoming time commitments. Thank you again.
@Jdsoccer10 -Although you wrote about soccer in an essay, it’s still a good idea to add it to your activities list. Often admission officials don’t read the essays until the very end of the evaluation process, and it would be helpful for them to know about your soccer as they review your activities (particularly because you said that your senior-year endeavors are sparse). Also, if your essay talks about playing varsity soccer in grade 12 but your activities list doesn’t mention it, the admission folks might be confused.
Thank you very much.
@Jdsoccer10 -You’re very welcome.
So I’ve uploaded resumes to several colleges, and just now I realized that for one of my extracurriculars it says “August 2010 - Present // Grades 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12”; in reality, I only did it in tenth grade…I also put this in the “extracurriculars” section on the CommonApp but it’s correct there - it’s only wrong on my attached resume. Should I email all the colleges to correct it, or do you think they’d be able to tell by looking at Common App?
Hi Ms. Rubenstone,
I just realized that I forgot to copy and paste my last sentence of my supplement for Tufts. It was a 30-word concluding sentence with some new information. Should I send a full version to my regional rep?
@psychopathycathy - The discrepancy between the resume and the application might confuse admission officials. They are always on the hunt for activities to which applicants have made a long-term commitment. So your resume makes it look like you made a long-term commitment to an endeavor that you actually only did for a year. So … you should PROBABLY send a correction, but I can’t tell for sure whether this is worth bothering admission officials with by what you’ve said here. If the activity was a pretty inconsequential one (e.g., volunteering for a couple hours one year at the Pep Club’s annual car wash), then I’d let it go. It would really depend on the nature of the activity and how high you ranked it on your Common App.
@hungryandbored -Yeah, for a 30-word concluding sentence, it’s probably a good idea to send the correct version to your regional rep.
@Sally_Rubenstone Hi Sally, I need some advice for my daughter. She had an interview for an elite college last night. In prep for the interview she reviewed her application. She discovered that she inadvertently submitted an initial draft of the essay for that school’s supplement. The initial draft was based on an essay she did for another college. I don’t know how she didn’t catch the mistake other than it is an essay that was very familiar to her because she has repurposed before. Should she send the final draft now? The initial draft is very good and was a good start for that prompt, but the final draft answers the prompt much more directly and gives much more information about what she would do at that school (which is what the prompt was asking for). Thank you!
@BlueBlazer -With so many teenagers beleaguered by so many (ridiculous, IMHO) college essay requirements, I know that, if I were still working in an admission office, I would be VERY sympathetic to any student who made the same kind of mistake that your daughter made. So my advice would be for her to email her regional rep with a brief explanation of the snafu and a copy of the CORRECT essay attached. She should also mention in the email that she is sending a snail-mail hard copy as well because she isn’t sure which method of delivery would be most convenient and helpful to the admission staff.
Admission folks can be very different from one another, so there’s no guarantee that whoever is on the receiving end of your daughter’s missives will be as sympathetic as I would be in the same shoes, but I still think it’s worth doing.
In Common App when filling out volunteer hours how should we list hours that fluctuate? For example I volunteer at an early head start center that partners with a class I took at school. I started out during school last year at about 7.5 hours a week then over the summer I was doing about 20-30 hours a week and now that I am back in school I no longer take the class that partners with the day care so I only visit sometimes (it opens and closes with my school so I can only go during class) but once summer starts again I’m going to volunteer about the same as last summer. If feel like if I put 3 hours a week its unfair to all the work I put in over the summer and last school year but if I put 30 its a little misleading as to what I’m doing now. (I have this problem with 2 organizations)
My family is also a foster home, my counselor said I could put this as volunteer work. Can I list these hours as all hours of the week (We have had at least one child in our home for the last 4 years) or do I only count the hours that I babysit (after school and weekends/sleeping?)
Lastly in one of my applications I put I had received honor roll on a quarterly basis in high school. My high school uses quarters instead of semesters so I meant to show that a good deal of those I had received honor roll but after submitting I thought maybe it was silly to include since 1) I didn’t get it every quarter and 2) although I’m proud of it the colleges see plenty of kids with every single year having honor roll and higher awards . Should I fix or remove this from my application also how should I handle my volunteer hours? Should I fix the ones I already submitted
@collegebound123 -As I’ve said before, the Common App annoys me because it’s impossible to indicate that, frequently, activities take up a range of hours that varies from week to week or season to season. My son, for instance, was involved in professional acting when he was in high school, which could eat as many as 50 hours in some weeks and then 0 hours for months at a time. But to average it all out to, say, 2 hours/week didn’t tell the real story at all.
So you have a couple of options when addressing your Head Start endeavors. You can either average out the hours over the course of the year and then use the Additional Information section of your application to explain the actual fluctuation OR, if you have the space available, you can enter two separate undertakings such as “HEAD START-SCHOOL YEAR” and “HEAD START-SUMMER” and thus list the appropriate number of hours for each one.
Regarding the foster home: My son fostered cats and kittens through high school. It’s not exactly the same situation as yours, but he did run into a similar question when completing his applications. The cats actually stayed in his room and woke him up in the middle of the night rather routinely. And, much of the time that he was at home, he was engaging with a cat to one degree or another. But he certainly couldn’t count the 8 or so hours he was in bed or the hours he spent with a foster cat on his lap while he watched TV as “activity” hours. So he ended up writing down the number of hours per week that he was typically formally dealing with the visitors … administering medications, cleaning litter boxes, driving them to and from the humane society, etc. On a couple of applications that required a few mini-essays, he was able to clarify his involvement with the fosters. But for the Common App activities list, he basically winged it, using a number of hours per week that didn’t really tell the whole story.
So, in YOUR case, I suggest that you write down the number of hours that you are actively engaged with the foster children in a volunteer role (e.g.,. babysitting) and then use Additional Information to explain your broader, more full-time role. Since you will probably be using Additional Information to explain Head Start fluctuations anyway, this will fit right in.
Finally, as for the Honor Roll … leave it alone if you’ve already put down a slightly misleading number of quarters that you were on Honor Roll. Colleges don’t care about Honor Roll at all. They are looking at student course rigor and grades. Different high schools have varying policies when it comes to awarding Honor Roll status. At my son’s high school, for instance, it seemed like nearly half the class got on one of the Honor Rolls every term and I found the designation meaningless … and I’m sure most of the college folks did, too.
Thank you so much! I really appreciate it!
@Sally_Rubenstone Hi Ms. Rubenstone, I was looking over my common application before an interview and just realized that my activity list states that I am Co-president instead of Vice President of a club. I was elected as co president at the end of last year but this year our sponsor wanted us to have a VP and president instead of two presidents, so I took that title (although the roles are essentially the same). I filled out my activities list at the beginning of the year before we decided to make this change, and somehow never remembered to fix this mistake. I also sent resumes to schools that took them, and didn’t catch the “co” on those either. However, my teacher recommendations and one of my supplemental essays mention me being Vice President. Should I email admissions officers clarifying this?
@takingLs -I would definitely let this go. If you’d said on your applications that you were co-president of your class or of the entire student body, then I MIGHT suggest sending a clarification. But under the circumstances, the difference is hairsplitting and will not affect your admission outcomes anywhere.