<p>One thing on the MIT application reads:
"Summer Activities (reading, relaxing, camp, travel, summer school, volunteer work, research, etc.). List your most recent summer activity first."
This is followed by six slots for entering summer activities.
Are we supposed to fill in as many as we can, going back to summer 2012 and 2011 if possible? Or should we stick to just activities of this summer?</p>
<p>Also, is it best to list a summer volunteering job under extracurricular activities, summer activities, or employment?</p>
<p>If you’ve done six meaningful things with your summers over the last four years, I’d recommend filling all the space they give. It does list activities like reading and relaxing as options, so it looks like they just want to know how you spent that summer free time, going back a few years. </p>
<p>This is more of a subjective view, but I think a summer volunteering job should go under summer activities. The extracurricular slots seem to be designed for something that was long-term, that you did on a regular basis for a long period of time. Since it’s volunteering, its not really employment in a strict interpretation of the term. It seems to make the most sense in that summer section.</p>
<p>They would like to know how you spent your summers during high school. So you can definitely go back to 2012 and 2011. But if you have so many things to put in there just from this past summer, it’s probably not important to list everything. List what was most important to you if it doesn’t all fit.</p>
<p>Like many other students, I had summer reading every summer. Does MIT want me to put that down? Do they really want applicants to put down stuff like reading and relaxation, or only the more substantial stuff?</p>
<p>Reading was always a substantial part of my summer, so I put it down. If you balance your time in the summer with fun, why wouldn’t MIT want to know that. They want to know the real you, so tell them.</p>