<p>^Exactly! But the issue seems less clear when the student is traveling individually to a game or practice and not corporately by school bus. Suppose the student is not a member of a school team, but rather belongs to a town travel team or elite club team. S/he must transport himself by personal car to a field an hour from home for an away game. Maybe s/he has to travel that far for regular practice, since it’s a regional or state level squad. Does that travel count as participation time? It seems to be a prerequisite for participation, but I think many posters on here would say that particular commute shouldn’t be counted. Gets trickier, doesn’t it?</p>
<p>General rule of thumb would be to estimate in as fair and reasonable way as possible to calculate the hours required.</p>
<p>I think you should not worry about quibbling minor amounts of time. </p>
<p>Believe me, when something is embellished or doesn’t add up right, an adcom will notice. Again, I don’t want to give specifics from any student of mine but I am in the midst of doing feedback revisions on a kid’s activity resume and since my eyebrows were raised, you can bet an adcom’s would be as well, and I am making sure it is revised appropriately. I feel there are some who find a need to “embellish” out of fear they don’t have enough. And that is not OK in my book.</p>
<p>It is not that I don’t understand the commutes involved, by the way. Here is an example. Every Saturday, D 2 took ballet/pointe class in one city and voice lessons in another city. I believe ballet was 2 hours and voice was 1 1/2 hours. To do this, one parent would have to leave and be gone for 7 1/2 hours from start to finish due to the drive time and distances involved. My D did not put down 7 1/2 hours but had 2 hours for ballet and 1 1/2 for voice even though all those other hours had her out of the house for these activities. She did not count the commute. That was just ONE day of her week, and I won’t bore you with the other days for her or her sister but this was typical.</p>
<p>Again I agree with Soozievt. It’s not terribly difficult after reading hundreds or thousands of apps for admissions folk to see what is realistic and what is not. Face it after sleep and school the kids only have a certain amount of hours each day to do homework, volunteer somewhere, participate in sport or some other activity, work, church and spend some time with the family. Not too difficult to glance and see if it “adds up” or is a realistic representation of the student’s week. Secondly, it’s not a race to see if one can “fill up” a 24 hour day, it’s really for colleges to get a feel for the kids and what their passions, focus and interests are. If you have a list that clearly couldn’t possibly be done well by any human in a week, then where is the focus and passion? My son, who is currently working on apps, is ‘worried’ that he doesn’t have a big enough “list” and I’m having the same discussion with him so there is abit of fear on the kids’ part that it’s just not enough and we, parents need to help them see the forest through the trees so to speak and not get sucked into their fears.</p>
<p>I appreciate that most people have been able to have this discussion without accusing athletes of trying to pad their hours. Personally, I feel like a student should include travel time for activities away from home, but not hours for general commuting (even though there have been many times when the commute in rush hour traffic lasted longer than the practice in question!) </p>
<p>This is a timely discussion, as my athlete D is trying to fill out the common app activities list. With the combination of school and 2 club teams in her sport, it’s clear that she’ll have to include an activities resume to explain things. Soozie - or anyone else - do you have a link to a sample of such a resume? </p>
<p>We have a couple specific questions, as well, because I’m not sure about the degree of overlap between the common app and the activities resume. Is it okay if she completes the regular activities list on the common app, then includes an annotated version of the SAME activities on the resume? (don’t want to irk the adcom by repetition, but it would seem odd not to list the sport on the common app.) For simpler activities, like model UN or similar things, should she put those on both the common app and the detailed resume, even when they don’t really need more detailed explanation? </p>
<p>Also, is the resume supposed to be just a list of activities, or a full resume? She’s listed her jobs on the common app, but those would normally go on a resume too. I assume she should leave jobs off the activities resume? </p>
<p>Any input would be gratefully received!</p>
<p>fauxnom, check this out: [Rsum</a> | Freshmen | Be a Longhorn](<a href=“http://bealonghorn.utexas.edu/freshmen/admission/resume/index.html]Rsum”>http://bealonghorn.utexas.edu/freshmen/admission/resume/index.html)</p>
<p>HS sports seemed easy to list, as practices/game times were mandatory and consistent. Same for their in school clubs. Outside activities were a bit trickier and had substantial commutes, but we never thought to include that time. All 3 kids have taken college classes while in HS, but only considered the class time important. My son also took college classes in NYC and worked (did research) at a hospital there. The commute took 60-90 minutes each way, depending on commuting method used that day (bus/subway or car). </p>
<p>For many years, my DD competed (danced) at Scottish Festivals all over the east coast, but only listed the time required for her actual competition (as a HS athlete would list the track meet time or soccer game time). Local competitions might have a 4 hour roundtrip commute but other competitions often required a night in a hotel. My DD also danced in a play in NYC and was able to list this under the job category since she was a paid performer. Not sure if she listed the performance/practice times - definitely didn’t list the commute. As for dance classes, she listed practice/lesson time, but left out the hour commute. </p>
<p>We’ll be addresssing this topic soon with our youngest DD who plays 3 varsity sports and also played club sport(s). The club team games required hours commuting - tournaments usually required a weekend away. We don’t plan to include the travel time, just practice/games - same with her fall weekend league. That seems simple enough. </p>
<p>What I expect to have trouble with is my youngest tends to do some ECs on her own. She’s not always available when organized activities are happening so she tends to do some things on her own. My DH was “downsized” twice and she saw how tough it was to lose an income and this year has been tough for some of her classmates/teammates whose parents lost their jobs. She noticed lots of items being thrown away on trash day that someone could use, but people here seem too busy to donate them - SO, she offered to pick up neighbors’ items and donate them. Last year was a big success, with toys and books which she donated to libraries/doctors offices and one of our elementary schools and giving our hand me downs to kids, especially sports clothing/equipment. This year she expanded beyond our neighborhood. She spent most of the entire summer collecting used clothing, games, and books from our area to donate. THe results were overwhelming and she’s still sorting and delivering items to various locations (Salvation Army, etc). She usually delivers 12 large garbage bags at a time. I expect this will be harder to document since she’s doing it on her own. She received detailed receipts from Salvation Army but none from the libraries and schools. I warned her that these activities may not be “sanctioned” by her HS as community service hours but she wanted to do it anyway. She says she wants to do what she enjoys, not what looks good. She took a photo of our basement/garage to show the school if they question her but I doubt that will fly. Any ideas?</p>
<p>I’d just estimate the number of hours per week (try to think of an “average” week – I’m sure some are busier and some less busy) and mulitply it by the number of weeks. That’s really all you can do, I think. </p>
<p>What a great thing to do! I don’t think you need to worry about doucmenting something like that. If asked, with your donation receipts you have enough. I can’t imagine you’ll be asked though. (But, if I was you, I would count the time spent going around to collect the stuff, and the time spent delivering it to the various offices, charities, etc., not just the time spent sorting it, cleaning it, and handing it off.)</p>
<p>FauxNom, my kids listed their top (5?) activities trying to include sports and non sports activities in those boxes. BUT they included a 1 page activity sheet with more details. For instance, my DD listed Scottish Dance as a topic but on the detailed sheet, she showed how she did it for 10 years, training, competing, volunteering/performing at nursing homes, performing (paid) in a professional capacity by choreographing performances and as a featured dancer in a NYC play her senior year. Those little boxes really don’t tell the whole story.</p>
<p>My son had a detailed sheet but organized his differently. Don’t worry too much about the format. Let your child express himself in his own style. Just make it easy to read, try to keep it relatively short (they recommend one page if possible), Let the passion show.</p>
<p>Katherine Cohen in her book Rock Hard Apps suggests that students include any commute or preparation time in their hours. It may explain why a student doing a particular activity has time for little else. For example, S used to be on a sports team as well as the school band. An admissions committee might not have had a clue that it meant being out until ten pm (or much later) almost every evening each fall - because the school band travelled to each away game with the football team and due to the long distances between schools for away games. Students were not permitted to do schoolwork while on the sidelines of a game or practice and it was often too dark to do homework on the bus on the way home from away games, so maintaining good grades in demanding classes under those circumstances was not an easy thing. Truth is that admissions offices from colleges where we have a long track record of acceptances understand the time commitment involved at our high school, regardless. However, especially if the application is to a school where that is not the case, I think that noting or including any unusual time spent commuting(one way or another) is important. Nothing resume padding about it IMO. </p>
<p>If nothing else, and even if you think it should not be included, just be aware that many other students are being encouraged to include the time and do so.</p>