<p>I really do spend a lot of time tending to my cats, and at one time I had 13 cats. </p>
<p>So should I include it or is it a little too weird?</p>
<p>If they are your own pets, I would say not to include it.</p>
<p>does it involve breeding, vet care (as in shots, deworming, medical care), or showing? was is something you did as a "business"? as said before, if they were just pets, and you did no more than feed them and change litterboxes, I would not mention it</p>
<p>If you have lots of cats and do things like train them or breed them or foster them for the human society, certainly include this as part of your ECs. This particularly would be interesting if you want to enter an animal-related field.</p>
<p>well we don't have good vets in our country so i have to take care of the medical side, but yes they are my own pets so I suppose I won't include it. Thanks everyone for your responses!</p>
<p>Writing about your obvious passion for cats could be an unusual and good essay topic.</p>
<p>instead of "taking care of cats," i'd clarify by saying "taking care of 13 cats"</p>
<p>Yeah I did write a supplemental essay about it for one of my colleges.</p>
<p>it shows competence and responsibility if you are the one who coordinates their medical care. If you just clarify it on your app by stating exactly what you do, I don't see why it would be a problem, especially if you need to lengthen your list of ECs</p>
<p>Anyone else with an opinion on this?</p>
<p>Hmm.. you might want to include it, but be sure to include the fact that you had 13 and took care of them without your parent's help (if you did, that is)... and maybe also detail what you did for them.</p>
<p>yeah- i think you should include it as its interesting and you did spend a lot of time on it, but find a way to explain it and its importance (150 ec part? addl info?) or else it'll just seem weird and random</p>
<p>well here's what i am doing, i'll mention it in the ec section of the com app, and include a brief explanation in the additional info section. I won't send a short answer on it since i have already written about another ec. Sounds fine?</p>
<p>if you have enough room for the words, add in a phrase about what it represents to you, means to you. Often I hear from the admissions reps say it's not what you do, it's the meaning you derive from it, or what you learned by doing it, that interests them.</p>
<p>"helped manage the care of 13 cats at home" is a delightful way to say "my family had 13 pets and I helped" but the first sounds more like the responsibility I bet it was.</p>
<p>Actually, if you were in sole charge of them all, THAT would be weird.</p>
<p>Or if by caring for 13 cats you (for example) helped younger children (neighbors or siblings) discover the joy of animals...it gets interesting and shows you are a kind person.</p>
<p>I know some people who come back from a trip to Europe and their stories are dull, while others go to the grocery store and have stories to tell.</p>
<p>I'm not saying to b.s., I just mean you could take a pause now, reflect on what this activity means to you and try to say that in a phrase, as part of a sentence.
Meow.
My son (applying now) learned and grew a lot by adopting and training our SPCA dog. I think he found various places to mention it in passing, for example, one question (somewhere) about "what you did last Sunday" he put it into his narrative just in a phrase. It wasn't the whole Sunday, but he stopped to play with his dog on the way to whatever he was mainly describing.<br>
If ANYWHERE on your ap you drop in "cared for our 13 cats" nobody will forget it and it's cool.
Best wishes.</p>
<p>No, I wouldn't mention it (unless you are breeding and showing cats - then that would be different, otherwise, you just sound like a ...well, a crazy, cat person - it's not relavent to your educational/career goals and I would leave it out.)</p>
<p>Too wierd on the face of it unless there is a story...</p>