<p>All the advice I’ve gotten when I’ve broached the topic has told me to explore it in my essay. I feel like there’s more to me than this experience though, there are other things I would rather say in the essay. Have you heard any other tips for making work experience stand out? I’ve been told, too, to get a letter of recommendation from my boss. She loves me but I don’t know how well she would know how to write a recommendation to college (it’s different from a work related rec) and I’m honestly kinda afraid to ask…</p>
<p>my definition of passion: doing something you enjoy and has to be some what related to the field you’re going to be in when you enter college, ex: you major in engineering, you can volunteer at some elctronic place that has some activities that are somewhat related to something you do in MIT’s engineering classes or something. lol</p>
<p>Hmm…so if I’m an avid tennis player, #1 on my school’s tennis team and good enough to win some open tournaments in my area, but I plan to study economics in college, playing tennis doesn’t count as “passion”? Or if I’m a prize-winning Irish folk dancer, but I plan to major in chemistry and go to medical school, my dancing doesn’t count as “passion”? I would not have guessed that.</p>
<p>“Passion” is overrated, and I strongly suspect that most of the “passions” that 17-year-olds claim to have are bogus.</p>
<p>To be perfectly honest, most colleges and universities aren’t all that selective, and they don’t care about your extracurricular activities at all. If you meet their academic criteria, you’ll be admitted. At the ones that do care, they’re not really asking about your passion. They’re asking what you do with your out-of-school time. If you’re a busy and productive person, who’s managing to get good grades in demanding classes and to accomplish other things besides, then you’re probably a person who’ll be able to juggle the demands of college successfully too.</p>
<p>Admittedly, at the insanely selective colleges (HYPSM, Amherst, Swarthmore, etc.), it’s a little more complicated than that. But at most places, I don’t think it is.</p>
<p>^ This.</p>
<p>Although Sikorsky, probably the majority of students on this forum, if not then a very large portion, aspire to go to one of those insanely selective colleges you listed.</p>
<p>ohh wow sikorsky, you totally altered my view on “passion”. XD i guess i was taking too much info from CC people and their descriptions on passion, I now kinda agree that if you meet the academic criteria, there’s a good chance you will be admitted. 
but nontheless, college admissions process is very capricious.</p>
<p>OP does not have to waste a whole essay to describe the job. For each EC, there are two lines where an applicant could write about the EC, that’s where I would write a blurb about the job. I would let the adcoms know how many hours and why the job is necessary, but more importantly OP’s accomplishment on the job - “Youngest person to be promoted from cashier to team lead,” “Received a raise after 3 months on the job,” employee of the month," “rewrote the inventory control database during spare time.”</p>
<p>An applicant needs to have good enough stats (tests, gpa) to get a seat at the table. For lower tier schools, stats maybe good enough to get someone in, but the top top schools want to know if an applicant has intellectual curiosity, excel in whatever he/she is doing, leadership quality. A lot of people misunderstand the leadership quality as one must become the captain of a sports team or president of student council. I think what they are looking for is if one would do over and beyond, and be one of the best in whatever he/she is doing. </p>
<p>OP maybe doing one of those low level, boring jobs, but is he a great worker despite what the job is, did he do more than what’s asked of him. I interviewed an applicant for a job once. He told me that he was a clerk at a wireless phone store. It didn’t sound very impressive initially, but I probed him more on what was the most interesting about the job (I expected him to say nothing) and what was the best thing he did on the job. He thought about it then said, “This is nothing, but I came up with a marketing campaign to target new international students for my boss and the sale for back to school went up X%.” He also created a data base to track the store’s inventory - integrated their POS (point of sale) system with his data base. I hired this new graduate.</p>
<p>Your ECs and awards sections are very important. Try to use the description section wisely, key words and capital letters will draw adcoms’ attention. Your essay(s) will then tie your whole application together. Think of application as the most important marketing material about you. Sometimes it is not what you do, but how you present it. Paid work is a good EC if you make it a good EC.</p>
<p>On CC, one should be careful about just “who” is giving the advice. Another high school kid, especially, won’t know, no matter which forum it is. </p>
<p>Oldfort is right about using the description lines, but there is a cutoff- and I don’t know what that is. Be concise. Frankly, it’s not a job resume, you don’t need much detail; just enough will do it. </p>
<p>If you choose to focus on the job in the essay, it had better be relevant to the college admit review. The essay is not where you explain some misc detail, it’s where you craft a nice tale that “shows” the strengths adcoms want to see in their freshman class. That’s not how your time to engage was limited by the job. Decision-making, resilience, attitude- yes. Among other things. </p>
<p>Math, you’re confusing passion with motivation and drive. And, no matter what most interests you personally, one reason joining is important is it shows you can be part of a team, aside from whether or not it advances your own personal agenda. Those kids who only pursue “what interests me” can be at a disadvantage, depending.</p>