<p>The Pomona supplement essay i want to write about is:</p>
<p>b) Although it may appear to the contrary, we do know that people have a life beyond what they do to get into college. Tell us about an experience you’ve had outside of your formal classroom and extracurricular activities that was just plain fun and why.</p>
<p>By extracurricular, do they mean ANY ECs we listed, or just ones basically connected to the school? I want to write about a scuba diving experience i had this summer that would make a great essay, but i did list it as an EC on the common app. are they more interested in a random experience???</p>
<p>and unfortunately I can't do much better. You're right that strictly speaking you should not write about the scuba diving. But OTOH one supposes that the folks at Pomona really just want to get a sense of you apart from your school accomplishments. One supposes that any essay that gives them that sense would be good. </p>
<p>I would love to hear from someone who has insight as to why Pomona asks this particular question. It is sort of puzzling to figure out what they are trying to get at.</p>
<p>If you haven't seen it, you might enjoy this article by the Dean of Admission at Pomona about what colleges want in a student application:</p>
<p>i ended up writing an essay about mattress surfing (sledding on a mattress). it isn't as big of a part of my life, but it is just plain fun and pretty original :)</p>
<p>I assume that's the sort of thing they want, but it does seem a little frivolous to ask top students in their senior years to spend time writing an essay on mattress surfing or a similar topic. But, whatever, they're Pomona so they can do whatever they want.</p>
<p>i have 2 possible topics , one is more along the lines of the "mattress surfing" type thing mentioned above, the other is a bit more legitimate but i listed it under one of my ECs on the common app page (though it was not an EC at school)... what should i do?</p>