So I am writing my common app essay and I choose the first prompt (I am specifically answering about an “interest”) and so I am writing about my love of archeology, but it is basically all about a three-day volunteer trip I took to the south to work on a site. Is this too little to write about? I will mention how I’ve always been interested in history and how great the trip is, but will admissions people think this is too short of an experience to actually believe I have a real interest? I am especially worried because nothing else on my resume mentions archaeology or history (but that is really because there aren’t many history/archeology extracurricular opportunities around me)!
The prompt is just a tool the schools want you to use to show the real you.
You don’t need to have actually done anything with your interest for it to be valid. I’m a huge storm geek, but that doesn’t mean I’ve ever done anything to do with meteorology.
BUT-- be careful!!! This essay needs to be about YOU-- who you are, what you love, what you’ve learned about yourself. It would be very easy to gush about your trip, but that’s not the point. Spend as few words as possible describing the trip. Then spend the rest of the essay talking about what you learned.
The trip itself is already on your app, under volunteer work, right? Make the essay about you.