<p>I have a blog that I've been writing since junior year, with the entries mostly being extended essay/column-style entries on politics and education. I listed that as one of my outside activities (writing for it, as well as designing the website, took a considerable amount of time and has been something I've really enjoyed), but I'm also thinking about writing a bit more about it in the additional information sections of the common app supplements for the schools that have such a section. I'm thinking about just writing a short paragraph on what it's about, and giving the URL in case anyone reading my app wants to take a look. But now I'm thinking that that might come across as a bit presumptuous, that it seems like I expect them to take time out to read some random blog. </p>
<p>Obviously a lot has to do with how I word it, but in general would that be a good idea? My other concern is whether the additional information section would be a good place to write something like this. I don't have anywhere else to write it, though, because I already wrote about another activity for the EC short answer prompt in the common app, and I couldn't change that (although I probably wouldn't want to anyway) because the common apps have already been submitted to all my schools.</p>
<p>So would it generally be a good idea to do this?</p>
<p>Tufts University specifically mentions blogs in their essay about "Who are you?" I run a Mets blog (<a href="http://www.sheafaithful.com%5B/url%5D">www.sheafaithful.com</a>) that has gotten very big to the point where I got advdertising money, have interviews with MLB players, and receive free books ahead of release dates for book reviews. So, my blog was the topic for my common application essay, the longer one. If you love your blog and love writing it, go for it.</p>
<p>^ ^ ^ Definitely agree with Ludacrispat. If it's an intelligent, well-written blog, it can say a lot about you. Not mentioning it would be like not saying you work for the school newspaper, or some other writing EC.</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses, guys. Yeah, I already mentioned my blog as one of my activities in the common app ECs section, but I just said "issue-based editorial weblog" and couldn't elaborate on it. (Although I guess in hindsight I could have written about it in the Additional Information section of the common app, but it's too late for that now). So yeah, I'm thinking that even just offering the URL will probably imply to the adcoms that it's a serious blog, and not just resume-padding, and if any of them decides to actually read it, it could possibly help me a lot.</p>
<p>By the way, on a related but kind of tangential note, I was thinking of writing after the paragraph about my blog:</p>
<p>You should mention your blog. It is part of you, and blogging in general is part of our culture. At worst, your blog will be another trivial pursuit. At best, a gateway into you as the individual, into the nooks and crannies of your personality.</p>
<p>Since this does seem to be very important to you, go ahead and list it. As long as it isn't like most people's Myspaces, I'd say it would only help you.</p>
<p>Yeah, I think I will write about it. Thanks again.</p>
<p>Although I just realized that there could be a problem, if someone at an admissions committee reads it, but does so in Internet Explorer. I'm pretty sure my site doesn't display properly in IE, although I have a Mac so I can't check now. Can one of you open it in IE and tell me how it looks? </p>
<p>The problem with IE is that it's so non-standards-compliant that even if my website's code is good, IE could still display it wrong. And only a small percentage of my readers use IE, so correcting it hasn't really been necessary until now...</p>
<p>Damn. Alright, thanks PhatAlbert and Private_Joker. </p>
<p>Hmm, this changes things. I'd hate for an adcom to read it and think I don't know how to write a decent webpage (when in reality I just don't know offhand how to correct for IE's crappiness), and that I generally have little sense of taste. And this wouldn't be easy to fix since I can't even run IE on my computer (without getting Boot</a> Camp and installing Windows, at least.. which I actually tried to do yesterday but ran into some problems along the way).</p>
<p>So I don't know. Assuming I couldn't fix this in time, would it still be worth mentioning my blog's address in my college apps?</p>
<p>eh.. how many people can code a webiste?
I notice that you use wordpress (fun stuff :D).. you could change your layout pretty easily with it. If you really want, there's a site (or two) that generates screenshots of your site under whatever browser you want.</p>