<p>Hello,</p>
<p>I'm filling the Common App right now, and I need some help in the Activities section. This is what it'll look like, as of now -</p>
<ol>
<li>Ranked 4th in International Olympiad of the English Language (Academic = 4hrs)</li>
<li>Mentored underprivileged children at an organization (Community Service = 80hrs)</li>
<li>Worked as a writer for AOL India (Work = 35hrs)</li>
<li>Won 1st prize in an intra-city, inter-school debate competition (Debate/Speech = 5hrs)</li>
<li>Won 1st prize in an intra-city, inter-school extempore competition (Debate/Speech = 5hrs)</li>
<li>Won 1st prize in an intra-city, inter-school Science talk (Debate/Speech or Science/Math = 5hrs)</li>
<li>Won 1st prize in an intra-city, inter-school spontaneous storytelling competition (Debate/speech = 5hrs)</li>
</ol>
<p>[ul]
[<em>]Is this okay?
[</em>]How do 7 items usually reflect on a candidate?
[<em>]Is it acceptable that I'm including the "prizes" I've won in competitions as 4 different entries?
[</em>]Are my descriptions of the activities good enough? This is what I plan to put in the Rank placed / Honor earned / Achievement field.
[<em>]Are my classifications of the activities accurate enough?
[</em>]I'm queasy about where to place the Olympiad rank in. It doesn't exactly "fit" in any category, IMO. Help?
[<em>]Which category should I place the 1st prize in the Science talk in? I want there to be a cohesive thread uniting (almost) all my activities and I want it to reflect my passion for English and Mass Communication.
[</em>]I recently donated blood for thalassemia patients. I even have a certificate for it. Should I include that under the Activities section too?
[/ul]</p>
<p>Kindly answer my queries. Assistance would be highly appreciated!</p>
<p>76 people have viewed this thread till now. Yet, not one response. I hate to sound whiny but I could really do with some informed opinions here. Where I live, I don’t even have ready access to counselors/consultants. CC is probably the best source I have.</p>
<p>Please help!</p>
<p>Rather than try to fill in as many lines as possible, really think about your most meaningful EC activity and list it first. Then go down the list. If there are only 3 so be it. That is not necessarily a bad thing. How you present it, and expand on it is what counts. Admissions don’t have a tally sheet on how many things you list. They read what you have done, what type of leadership you were involved in within those activities and what you level of commitment is. You can write about you passion in English and Mas Communication and how it relates to your activities in the expanded section.</p>
<p>And, no, I do not think you should list donating blood as an EC activity on your college app.</p>
<p>Thanks so much! I’m definitely going to put these activities -</p>
<ol>
<li>Ranked 4th in the International Olympiad of the English Language</li>
<li>Taught underprivileged children at an organization for 20hrs (now but more than 60 by application time)</li>
<li>Did a paid internship with AOL India which allowed me to get my articles posted on their site.</li>
</ol>
<p>It’s the 4 entries after that, the inter-school debate/extempore competitions I placed 1st in that I’m hesitant to include in their entirety. On one hand, I’m pretty sure they reflect some of the passion I have for Mass Communication and English…but on the other hand, I’m unsure of how “big” they are and how much impact they will have. Maybe another opinion would do the trick.</p>
<p>And, okay, I won’t include the donating blood thingy in my App.</p>