Lots of questions

Applying to College Common and Coalition Application
1

<p>I have lots of random questions that I've been wondering about for a while. If anyone could please answer a few, I would be really thankful:</p>

<p>1) I'm almost top 5% of my class (my school is pretty competitive, about 1/3 go to schools that are top 30), but not quite (it's about 5.6%), will I have to go with top 10%? My family moved around a lot, so we didn't know too much about GPA and rankings until it's too late.</p>

<p>2) If I had a hobby/interest like playing piano, but I'm not officially in any related clubs or have won any awards. I do spend about an hour on it every day, so can I put it down as an EC? Also, if I play violin at an orchestra outside school, but also take private lessons/practice at home, do I put the orchestra part and the at-home part separately or together?</p>

<p>3) If I won awards at science olympiad competitions, how exactly would I list them? (Since there are a lot of events and their separate awards)</p>

<p>4) I' m in a local math club with lots of competitions, but have no big awards except qualified for AIME. Should I list the various competitions at all or just mention the club?</p>

<p>5) What exactly do you have to mail to the schools you're applying to? (beside transcript/SATscores, like AP scores???)</p>

<p>6) Could/Should I ask the same teachers to write all of my rec letters? </p>

<p>7)Should volunteer activities go in the ec/work experience column at all? If so, should they all be in one place or get their individual spaces?</p>

<p>8) I'm getting a new counselor (because my old one is moving), should I mention that anywhere (since I really don't know this person, and the counselor evaluation in common app seems to ask for personal opinions)?</p>

<p>I actually have more questions but can't think of them right now, and my mom is driving me nuts with the "you have to fill all the ec/work experience slots because everyone else does and you'll seem incompetent if you don't" talk, so please help me and make suggestions.</p>

2

<p>*If I had a hobby/interest like playing piano, but I’m not officially in any related clubs or have won any awards. I do spend about an hour on it every day, so can I put it down as an EC? *</p>

<p>Absolutely (unless you have more significant EC that you would rather list in its place).</p>

<p>Also, if I play violin at an orchestra outside school, but also take private lessons/practice at home, do I put the orchestra part and the at-home part separately or together?</p>

<p>I would put it under one title (music/instrument: violin –> or whatever the category is on the common app) then explain the details, especially if you have a lot of different activities.</p>

<p>If I won awards at science olympiad competitions, how exactly would I list them? (Since there are a lot of events and their separate awards)</p>

<p>You can list them in the academic award section, and if they don’t fit, write all the awards in the additional information section.</p>

<p>I’ m in a local math club with lots of competitions, but have no big awards except qualified for AIME. Should I list the various competitions at all or just mention the club?</p>

<p>If you are going to list the science olympic awards in the additional info section, you may as well mention the math competitions in a few simple words. (ex: Math Club --participated in ABC 2008, XYZ 2010; qualified for AIME 2008)</p>

<p>What exactly do you have to mail to the schools you’re applying to? (beside transcript/SATscores, like AP scores???)</p>

<p>The transcript is to be mailed by your high school. The teacher recommendations should be mailed out by your teacher (or through the school, depending on school policy) with you providing the addressed envelopes. The SAT scores you have to send via collegeboard. There’s no need to send official AP scores, but you may have to mail out financial aid related forms, if you want to apply for aid.</p>

<p>*Could/Should I ask the same teachers to write all of my rec letters? *</p>

<p>That is the common practice. Usually the teacher writes one recommendation, which is then copied and sent to many schools.</p>

<p>Should volunteer activities go in the ec/work experience column at all? If so, should they all be in one place or get their individual spaces?</p>

<p>EC section, individual space (unless they’re all closely related).</p>

<p>I’m getting a new counselor (because my old one is moving), should I mention that anywhere (since I really don’t know this person, and the counselor evaluation in common app seems to ask for personal opinions)?</p>

<p>Most counselor recs are very impersonal anyway, so I think there’s no need to worry. If you want, you can ask your counselor to briefly mention this in the rec.</p>

<p>*I actually have more questions but can’t think of them right now, and my mom is driving me nuts with the “you have to fill all the ec/work experience slots because everyone else does and you’ll seem incompetent if you don’t” talk, so please help me and make suggestions. *</p>

<p>You don’t have to fill up all the slots :). Having in-depth achievement in a few ECs is better than joining over ten clubs and having little involvement in each, in my opinion. I’ll see whether I can dig up some past threads on this topic later.</p>

<p>Hope that helped.</p>

3

<p>wow, thanks a lot… my parents are putting a lot of pressure on me to get all the college app stuff done this summer, and it just makes me want to put if off longer. Any suggestions on the class rank question? I didn’t start to take a foreign language until high school, and our shool only offers honors for advanced language students, so that probably made the difference.</p>

4

<p>^I’m not sure about the first one, actually. Haha, I finished my apps last year two days before the deadline —> trust me, you want to get it done earlier :p.</p>

5

<p>I’ve already wrote 2 essays (one about my 2-yr-old sister and another about an incident and its impact on me), I’ll probably wrote more and then choose from them. I’ve also printed old common app files along with past supplements and looked over everything, but my parents are still complaining every day about how lazy I am…sad life, can’t wait until graduation, which is another year away. By the way, who did you ask to read over your essays? My past English teachers are either horrible or on bad terms with me, and my parents are definitely not going to be helpful. Also, is it bad if the teacher I ask to write my rec letters only knew me from junior year? (I’ve had completely new teachers every year)…and the letters can be submitted online? For some reason, a lot of threads mention mailing the letters and providing envelopes, but I thought they could do it online.</p>

6

<p>I asked my English teacher, whom I was on very good terms with… I actually asked two English teachers, and their suggestions were extremely helpful. And I also asked two friends at school, one that I was close with, another whom I thought was an awesome writer. Besides those people, two fellow applicants on college confidential.</p>

<p>A teacher that you’ve only known for one year is perfectly fine. I think teachers are more used to submitting recs on paper, as that has been the common practice for years, so that’s what I did.</p>

7

<p>You had 6 people check over your essays? I’m so screwed then. I think I can at least take sentences and post them online to get the right grammar, and ask my family/friends to check the content. Thanks for all the advice, I feel a lot better now~</p>