<p>My mom works with National Charity League and my brother's school's PTA. I wouldn't stress out about it AT ALL. It's probably one of the least important, if not the very least important, aspects of the application. I find the application's question ridiculous for the same reasons you listed.</p>
<p>They just want to know what sort of community activities your parents do, and that means exactly what you think. If your mom volunteers at your religious center, write that. If your dad collected donations for UNICEF at his office, write that. Whatever it is.</p>
<p>Think about it, if your parents won some national recognition by the Red Cross and you colleged cans once, that won't look impressive at all as opposed to how it would look if your parents don't do anything.</p>
<p>The strategy I took was to mention the volunteering activities in which my parents engaged in vague wording so we seem like a community minded family without it overshadowing what I do.</p>
<p>Hello... I just got a TASP application in the mail a couple of days ago (which looks like it means I scored in the 99th percentile on my PSAT, assuming no one recommended me? The mail being annoyingly slow here, I haven't recieved my PSAT scores yet, and won't know what I got until I go back to school next week.), and I found this site and thread. It looks like it would definitely be something worth going to, if I could get in.</p>
<p>If anyone has any more descriptions or stories from their interviews, I'd love to hear that. Also, do you know how much school and community activities factor into the application process? Grades, essays, and work have pretty well been covered, but I haven't seen much mention of extracurricular stuff in this thread. Beyond its importance in applying, did most of the people there have a lot, or was it a mix like the scores, or...? And what is the pubspeak thing that's been mentioned--I assume its "public speaking" of some sort during the program, but I'm curious.</p>
<p>Oh, and since I am planning to apply, my choices in order:</p>
<p>UT Austin "The Cultures of Writing"
Cornell I "Foreign Policy as Subversion"
Cornell II "Voyages to the Otherworld: long subtitle"
St. Louis "The Ties that Bind: insanely long subtitle"
Michigan "Islam in Practice: another subtitle"</p>
<p>Two and three are about equal in my opinion (and hey, we can lump one in there too, I guess), and four and five I really don't want. Foreign policy and writing are more universal than specific racial movements and religions, and medieval romance is giga-interesting.</p>
<p>Heh... Rather the opposite of the other lists I've seen here. That means I've got a better chance of getting what I want, though.</p>
<p>the TASP aplication requires the activities.. thats my hardpoint i have to start them all right now.</p>
<p>Ralph welcome to CC! You dont know what you have got yourself into lol</p>
<p>Thanks... And by that do you mean these forums, or just this thread?</p>
<p>Ralph, pyroman- PM me your AIM screennames? We can form a TASP chat or something.</p>
<p>Ralph, I think pyroman is referring to the site as a whole--it is known to become more or less addictive.</p>
<p>Cultures of writing is def. my first choice also! </p>
<p>A TASP chat sounds fun.</p>
<p>savoirfaire I added you to my CC list, umm i'll try and pm you if I figure it out</p>
<p>aim:gochat?roomname=cheetosaregross</p>
<p>^ CC chat.. lots of TASPers.</p>
<p>Umm... don't sweat the parent activities section; I left mine straight up blank. Remember that a large part of Telluride Association's philosophy is based upon community service, so volunteer work and such may be useful. But again, it's subjective, because I had no community work whatsoever on my app. Go figure. As for the pubspeak, it's basically a 20-minute open floor for whatever you want to talk about. pianoking introduced us to his own constructed language, jsn did a spiel on slang in his international school, and one guy did a demo on stage combat. It's pretty laid back, but it's really interesting to see what other people know about and how they are part of it. Don't sweat it, it all comes out easily once you start talking and it ALWAYS goes overtime.</p>
<p>Oh, and St. Louisans, what is with the Henry Clay infatuation?</p>
<p>The Ties that Bind is my first choice all the way. I'm such a civil rights movement nerd <3</p>
<p>The pubspeak sounds so cool! What'd you do yours on, Globber?</p>
<p>Is there only one pubspeak (is it near the beginning, or near the end?) or is it a kind of recurring thing?</p>
<p>Thanks for answering my questions, btw.</p>
<p>Each TASPer is required to give one pubspeak, so we had ours spread out something like two per day, two days per week. It's basically up to the factota when you do your pubspeak. Ours went with alphabetical order of family names.</p>
<p>Mine was kinda of an intro primer to macroeconomics. It sounds pretty boring, but I think it turned out alright.</p>
<p>If you analyze a poem, do you think it's a good idea to include a copy of the poem itself with the analysis? </p>
<p>Juuuust wondering :)</p>
<p>Uhm... the Henry Clay thing... riiight.</p>
<p>I don't know exactly how it came out. I think we were discussing things to do and someone came up with the idea to do a little "Henry Clay for President" day thing since he ran like 4 frickin times and never won. :P So we made a bunch of signs and cards and crap and when we walked to class we paraded the sign and all that good stuff. We also stopped random stangers to give them Henry Clay fliers. It was sorta fun. Later, when we went on a walk to a historic neighborhood, we walked into this office and saw a Henry Clay book sitting on the table. It was sorta freaky.</p>
<p>About Pubspeaks... we didn't really have a time limit. Well, I guess we were supposed to have a time limit, but some went on really long, and some were pretty short. I remember the first one we had... it finished at around 9ish, but a few of us stayed around and extended the discussion until 1 or 2ish (a.m.). It was really good, actually.</p>
<p>Poor Henry Clay :( Him and William Jennings Bryan are the only people to have run for president at least three times (on a major party ticket) and lost every time. /end random trivia. Now, I guess I should get working on that TASP app...</p>
<p>I would totally campaign for Aaron Burr to be President. He's my favorite American historical figure. Dueled (and killed) Alexander Hamilton + tried to become emperor of Mexico = the original bada**.</p>
<p>My history class would always go "awwww" whenever we heard about Henry Clay losing another campaign. Poor lil guy.</p>