The Common Application — in addition to the personal essay where the applicant chooses which prompt they wish to respond to — also includes all the questions and writing prompts specific to each individual school. This will include the “Why essay” plus other prompts. So if she is applying to Amherst (using this only as an example) and adds “Amherst” to her Common Application list of colleges, all of the Amherst-specific questions will be in the Common Application platform. If she adds Bowdoin to the list of colleges in the Common App, then she fills out the Bowdoin specific prompts. Again, just example school names.
My son received the advice that nothing is really optional when it comes to the essays (unless it is something specific to sexual orientation or gender identity and it does not apply, or Covid-impact related prompts.) The advice he received was to treat the application the same as he would any other application. Give it 110 percent. Take nothing for granted.
Along those lines, we just had a family friend’s son leave for his freshman year at a specific Midwestern school because he had a chance to play his sport, only to have a coaching change this summer. The new coach isn’t so sure now there’s a spot/role for him. Yikes! I can’t say for sure, but I don’t think he would have picked this school if he hadn’t thought he was going to play his sport there. So be 100 percent sure the school she is applying ED to is THE place she wants to be even if she isn’t playing her sport. Another friend’s son sprained his ankle during the preseason training and is now in a boot.
Thanks for taking the time to respond. Yes, this would be her school even without her sport. Truly a perfect fit for her. She is definitely giving the application 110%. Definitely not taking anything for granted.
foxmom, on your first paragraph, this is not entirely accurate. Some schools, NESCACs included, have optional prompts that only show up in their Portal after submitting the Common App.
Hamilton at least is like this, or was for 2021 grads. I knew about it, but still it’s really annoying to have “hidden” extra essays like this. Just put them on the initial app, so the kids can see what they are committing to completing.
Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, I am pretty sure that was the case with Colgate as well. 3 optional essays once you submitted the common app. Not a NESCAC, but I don’t think overlap is uncommon.
It may depend on the sport and what sort of impact player the recruit is, but generally I believe it is uncommon. I don’t know if there is any sort of slot concept for RD, but perhaps a tip which increases chance of admission somewhat. However, coaches prefer things “locked up” with ED since there is nothing binding in RD, and even after the coach support you can still walk away.
There are fully supported slots that fall to RD, and also soft support as mentioned above. Some sports do recruit later than others, like TNF and m/w basketball (to some extent). Obviously the coaches will have the most accurate info on where they are on terms of recruiting in any given year.
D is getting ready to submit her ED common app to the NESCAC she verbally committed to. Under the Activities section of the Common App, after research on our part, in the descriptions she used more of a list format to fit the max amount of info. into the character limit. We had read that list format and sentence fragments are okay for this. She then met with a friend of mine who is a college consultant to look over her things a couple of nights ago and she said that the descriptions of the activities should be more about what D took away from the experience and what she gained. For example, instead of listing out the responsibilities, etc., she would write something along the lines of, “I am privileged to work along side…” Not sure about this? May be overthinking this, but D really wants to submit ASAP and not sure which way to go…Given that it’s a high academic school, we don’t want to take anything for granted. Thoughts, experience?
The friend/ college consultant probably doesn’t have experience with recruited athletes. Many have no other ECs than their sport (or sometimes another sport too).
It’s your daughter’s application. She should do it her way. Recruited athletes are different and usually accepted based on the sport/coach’s recommendation and the statistics, not because they also ran the chess club or raised money through a 5k run. Sure, they need to be good students (gpa, scores, class rigor) but the other stuff doesn’t matter.
I’d stick with the way you had it. As twoin says, recruited athletes don’t need to approach things the same way typical recruits do. They need strong applications, but spinning activities isn’t going to move the needle at all.
The list format/sentence fragment way is exactly how Activities should be done. Similar to a resume. I have never heard anyone give direction to write what one got out of their ECs, like in the example you gave. Look on the college essay guy’s website if you want similar feedback to your initial sources as well as mine.
The only thing I would double check is that she is not undercounting her EC hours….many athletes do! She can separate HS and club teams, if applicable, and make sure to include things like other fitness training hours (either their own Activity or combined with the team)…so weightlifting, speed training, etc., captains’/team meetings, even travel.
The activities section is pretty straightforward. The school wants to know what EC’s the student participated in, the leadership roles, accomplishments/awards, and time spent. Schools are looking for depth of participation. Even for non-recruits, I would not turn this section into mini touchy feely essays (just the facts ma’am). Save that for the actual essays.
@BKSquared@Mwfan1921 Thanks, I agree with your thinking on this, and I am going to suggest to my D she leaves it as she has it, in terms of the activities write ups. My friend also saw that D has National Honor Society just listed in the academic honors section, and not listed in the activities section and she said it should also be listed under activities and should be second on the list, below her recruited sport. D didn’t put it under activities to begin with because we feel that it’s assumed that anyone applying to a highly selective school is in NHS. My friend said because our district has a large community service component and meetings related to it, that it should be listed under activities. D does have specific community service listed under activities, but not NHS. I’m probably over-thinking this, and maybe it doesn’t even matter, just wondering others’ thoughts on it.
I would have your friend get out of this review process. First, The Activity list should be in order of importance to your D. Second, National Honor Society is not a big deal and will not move the needle at any school. National Honor Society can be in Activities if there is an activity component (which not all schools have)…so if they have meetings, do community service etc, which sounds like what your D has. But I would have her put it where she thinks it should go. Tenth is ok. Some students might have ten more impressive/important activities than NHS.
I don’t think it matters as long as you listed in 1 place. My kids listed NHS under activities because of the leadership and community service component.