<p>Please briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities or work experiences in the space below. (Please respond in 175 words or less): how should I write here? Just like how I’ll write my essay or just directly state the facts, without being extremely cautious about diction and flowery? TIA</p>
<p>Definitely write it out as an essay. You don’t want to just state the obvious so give this section some life! If you can, I’d also advise you to explain how whatever you’re writing about (community service, a particular club) affected you as a person or what you learned from the experience. Best of luck!</p>
<p>175 words isn’t a huge amount of space, but it definitely gives you room to elaborate. As BobcatStudent said, be sure to include how it’s impacted you as a person (values, lessons, influence on future plans). I’d say some floweriness might be nice!</p>
<p>With a 175 word limit you won’t have the space you did with your main CA essay to warm up to the topic. You’ll have to jump more directly into the subject matter. That said, you’ll still want to craft a good piece of writing.</p>
<p>How direct you’ll need to be will depend largely on what you’re writing about. I’ve now had two kids apply to Bates. The first wrote about his love of the instrument he plays. Since everyone understands what the instrument is and his EC section had already listed his accomplishments, he had more room for creativity in his essay. The second wrote about involvement in a community service organization. She needed to spend more of her essay explaining what the organization is and her part in it, so she really didn’t have room to give more than a straightforward answer to the question.</p>