Hi all,
I’m wondering about what extracurricular time commitment to put down when an activity is done all year and time commitment varies. Personally, I have a different time commitment to sn activity every school year which averages out to around 5hrs/wk. However, when I put all year and include the two summer programs I’ve done (not worthy of being a separate ec), it goes up to 18 hrs/wk average. What does one do in this circumstance?!
If you have an activity that you devote 60 hours/week during the summer, then that is more compelling, if accurate, than the 5 hours you spend on it during the school year.
Thanks for your reply! I do understand that, but the hours aren’t quite like that. I just checked the math again and it the school year average is a bit lower, though the year round average is still about right. Basically, I have a 20 hr one week intensive one year and a 35 hour one week intensive another. They were both though the same place the activity is through year-round, but drive the average hours way way up. Should I make note of this and go ahead and put down the average? Or is it better to mention summer stuff in the activity description and just put down school year?
Unless I am missing something, if you did something for 35 hours for one week during summer vacation, you cannot say you devoted 35 hours per week for the entire summer.
Regardless, if these activities are such that you cannot make them convincing without combining, and you’re simply trying to fill that last space, then maybe they are not the most important things to list at all.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding…I thought the all year selection was for if you did the same activity both in summer and during the school year? It is the exact same activity, so I’m not combining and I won’t be cutting it out . I don’t want to say I did it for 35 hrs/wk the whole summer, I’m just wondering how to make the time commitment clear on the common app. Thank you for helping!
It is. But if you select that option, you average the number of hours over 52 weeks.
So if for the whole year, you devoted 400 hours to an activity, but only did it for 40 of the weeks, the math is 400/52, not 400/40.
Similarly, if you did a summer activity for 40 hours for one week, your average hours is 40/10 (or however long your summer break is), not 40/1.
Aha, I get it now! Thank you!