Since submitting my applications (both EA & RD), I have become involved with some new extracurricular activities. For one, I was selected as a US Ambassador for an international education project that pairs up schools from different countries, having them write postcards to each other in an effort to end xenophobia by facilitating global communication. As an ambassador, I speak on behalf of the organization’s commitment to non-violence and diversity, which goes along with the international writing ECs I focused on in my app. Additionally, I have started volunteering with Get Her Elected, an initiative where people from across the country offer their skills pro bono to help progressive women running campaigns for seats within the US government, and I help various candidates with writing, editing, communications, and social media.
My question is, do you think these constitute a worthwhile update to my RD schools? I am definitely going to include them in my LOCI for Yale SCEA, but I’m not sure about my RD schools. For context, I applied RD to Harvard, Princeton, Brown, Penn, Stanford, Chicago, Wesleyan, Vassar, Tufts and Georgetown.
Wow - those sound like really interesting ECs! I think there is nothing wrong with sending in an update to all the schools where you submitted applications. My son did send an update last February to many of his schools. Is there anything else you are waiting on (any awards or something like that)? You probably only want to send one update, so make sure you have all the information you need to send!
Have you asked your guidance counselor this question? I’d love to hear what some other parents think, as well.
Sure you can include them on your LOCI or in any update you write for colleges. Just keep in mind that admissions officers are swamped right now so IMO you will be best served by keeping any update short and sweet.
As an aside, hopefully you have some match/safety schools on your list as well and you should update those schools as well.
Thank you! I’m looking to apply for one or two writing opportunities, so I may wait about a week to see how those pan out before updating. I’m currently on break until the beginning of February, but I suspect that my counselor would just tell me how to submit an update, not whether I should, if that makes sense. I was just curious if these new activities would add to my application, or if admissions officers are generally annoyed by updates other than LOCI. @SueAnneW@happy1
I applied to SUNY Binghamton and McGill as well, both of which I’ve already been accepted to with scholarships. Ultimately, I preferred McGill to any of the private matches I was considering, and I will likely go there if I don’t get into any of the schools on this list.
Thank you! I will work on condensing my update and wait to see if anything new happens over the next week or two. As you can probably tell from the literary nature of my activities, I’m not naturally a girl of few words. @happy1
As far as I know most schools explicitly discourage unnecessary additional material. Now you need to decide if the new extracurricular ADDs necessary data that you believe is missing from your application but AO needs to know, or it just adds another item in your already long existing list of extracurricular activities? In my opinion, unless it it a minimum state-level award, a publication in impacting journal/magazine, or a really high profile activity, don’t bother the AOs.
Do you have any suggestions based on the two ECs I listed above? I’m not sure – they’re a bit atypical, and they draw more attention to the activism part of my app (instead of creative writing), but I don’t know if they fit into any of your categories. @hooverhoo
I don’t think this is “unnecessary additional material”. I agree to wait a week and see how the other activities pan out, but don’t delay too long.
Give them a brief description of you new honor or activities, and ask them to please consider it as part of your application. Close by stating how excited you are to be considered for admission to the school. (Proof emails carefully to make sure you put the right school name in!)
If the school hasn’t given a specific method for updates, just send it to the general admissions email. Individual ad cons can be touch and go – they may not be reading email due to busy season. Or could even be on leave or something and the school hasn’t updated the website yet.
@writergirl0316 Try googling around using some keywords that describe the activity or from the website you registered to see its uniqueness, importance, popularity etc, and image yourself as the AO to see if it will catch your eyes or alter your general view about this applicant, when you need to read this extra update. If the answer is no, IMO, dont run the risk of “Fail to follow instruction” by wasting AO’s one nice sip of coffee - they are human beings.
