<p>I just finished doing all my ECs on the common app. I had no room to list all of my tournaments/ volunteering for some of my ECs. I also wrote a few hundred words elaborating on some research I was doing. Is it okay to put all of this in add. info, or does the small amount of space in the EC section proper indicate that colleges do not want to read so much about ECs? I know some people say not to give admissions so much stuff that they dislike you, but at the same time I want them to know what I'm doing and what I've done.</p>
<p>I used about 500 of the 650 words available in add. info.</p>
<p>I would only do so if you have something really meaningful to say. My kid grouped her ECs - Volunteer work, School spirit, dance, reading…because she also had a lot of ECs. She wrote few essays about dance because it was her most important EC. She also wrote an essay about reading based on a prompt - if you had an afternoon off, what would would you do.</p>
<p>Okay. I don’t know if it’s meaningful or not to list all of the tournament placings I have had in academic team competitions. I think it maybe is since I guess you could call it one of my “main” ECs. Do you think so?</p>
<p>I also grouped all of my volunteering together, but had no room to explain what I did or even list everything in the EC section. This is because I haven’t dedicated myself to one or two big things but rather a bunch of small-ish things.</p>
<p>It’s fine to say a little more about your activities in the Additional Info section, but be succinct and use the space to make yourself more interesting. Example: Don’t list every volunteer hour or day; instead say:
“Volunteer Commitments: I just hate to sleep late Saturday mornings and as a result have accumulated dozens of volunteer hours at community events.”</p>
<p>I would just add to that a few examples of those community events or small service items to give admissions an idea of what sort of service you were involved in.
“Volunteer Commitments: I just hate to sleep late Saturday mornings and as a result have accumulated dozens of volunteer hours at community events including working at several river cleanups, food bank drives and as a judge every year for local school science fairs.” Or something along those lines. Good luck!</p>
<p>I generally try to discourage applicants from adding anything to that “additional info” section, but I LOVE niceday’s idea about writing a single sentence!</p>
<p>I would not bother to embellish it with specific examples. “Community events” says all you need to say.</p>
<p>Really, all of this matters more to you than to anyone else, including the admissions officers who read your application. Do you honestly think your admissions decision is going to come down to “Applicant A spent two hours volunteering at a bake sale, but Applicant B spent those same two hours handing out water at a charity run”???</p>
<p>As suggested by niceday, say you did lots of community service and be done with it.</p>
<p>The same is true of all your tournament placings. Say that you’re a spelling champion with lots of [local/state/national] awards. That’s all they need to know.</p>
<p>^ Thank you all very much. I will consolidate all my volunteering.</p>
<p>For tournaments, I still don’t know if I want to omit all of them. Do you think it’s okay if I omit just the smaller local ones and say “Lots of first-second places in local tournaments” + list the bigger ones, which are on the state/National level?</p>