<p>I'm thinking of applying to Yale ED this autumn, and I was wondering, if my personal statement is largely about my main extracurricular activity and passion (music), should I write about this yet again on the "elaborate" short essay, or should I address another activity which I participate in but am less passionate about?</p>
<p>I have a similar issue and I'm writing the "elaborate" essay on a second topic. I'd say do something else for the EC essay if you're confident that your personal statement conveys your passion for music eloquently and somewhat conclusively (unless of course you have to lie through the teeth to convey passion for this lesser activity ;)). Or for the EC essay you could always say "When I'm not shreddin' on the guitar/poundin' the piano/maulin' the marimba/(whatever you do), I sure love to [...]"</p>
<p>That's a good question...</p>
<p>My situation is also somewhat similar. Although it has to do with a recommendation. Since my recommendations all go to people who've observed/sponsored my activities, I wonder if writing about one of them would seem redundant and hurt my overall application.</p>
<p>I think writing about something else would be best. Then again, I'm still uncertain of what to do in my situation!</p>
<p>small piece of advice: make sure your essay tells what you are like, not just what you like.</p>
<p>RR - well said. I heard an AC say we want to know the "why" not the "what"</p>
<p>Also - NO bragging!</p>
<p>Yeah, in my essay I try to explain how my philosophical maturity coincided with my musical development, and how my philosophical experience has been parallel to the musical one.</p>
<p>A friend's daughter got into a HYPS a few years ago. One of her essays was about sitting in class and hearing someone's car alarm go off in the school parking lot. She described her reactions to this: anger that someone was interrupting her concentration in a class she liked, embarrassment for the car owner, curiousity about who would let this go on for so long without checking on it, and then of course, mortification when she realized it was her car. Simple, yes, but she was able to show some subtleties of her personality in a modest, honest, humorous way. This young women had many accomplishments worth bragging about, but she also understood that she needed to show what kind of friend, room mate and member of a student body she would be. She did not show herself in her best light, but in a real situation. This was a true story, by the way, and she was not a hero.</p>
<p>^riverrunner, hate to break it to you, but that's completely and utterly irrelevant to the OP's question. He's not talking about the personal statement/essay. At. All.</p>
<p>He's asking about the "activities short answer." It's like 150 words and youre only supposed to elaborate/talk about one of your ECs.</p>
<p>My mistake. Sorry.</p>
<p>I'm confused, too: Is the short answer supposed to be like the personal statement/supplement essay (except shorter) or is it a more matter-of-fact description of an activity?</p>
<p>This time I'll try to answer the right question. It seems to me this essay should help round out the picture admissions is forming of you. If your main essay is about your primary passion, maybe this essay should talk about something else you care about. Do you have another EC to expand on? Community service somehow related to you main EC? A study area of interest: foreign language, literature, math? If you can look objectively at your transcript and list of EC's, is there a pattern that you could expand on, or confirm a reader's suspicion about another big area of interest to you? What is it you want a reader to know about you that is difficult or impossible to conclude from reading the rest of your application?</p>