So the Common App gives you as much room as a tweet to explain your ECs, and mine are not very cookie cutter.
For instance:
- I completed a Global Citizenship Award which is very intensive and requires 30 hours of community service in the target language, travel to that country, do 3 research papers on that country and then a huge write up with ways to share it with the community. That’s a BRIEF overview and it’s still more than the 150 character limit or whatever it is.
Putting ECs in the essay is the biggest no-no, but I heard people add it to the Supplements. What would you guys do?
Thanks!
On the writing page, after the Common App essay, is a section called “Additional Information”. This is a good place to expand on one or more ECs (or other issues, such as medical leave, or the like) that are particularly important to you and where the 150 character limit in the activities list just can’t quite do it justice.
You don’t have to use the whole space (600-650 word limit if I recall correctly) for one item, and IMO it’s still important to be concise. My kids broke up the space with underlined ‘headings’, expanding on 2 or 3 different activities/experiences, each with a small paragraph.
There are many ECs that are so common, that Admissions Committees really don’t need to read a paragraph about them. But when you have an activity or combination of activities that are a bit beyond ‘typical’ and/or are particularly important to you/reveal something about you (what’s important to you; what you like to spend your time doing), use the space to tell them about it.