<p>How detailed do the adcoms want you to get? I noticed that there's a LOT more space than normal "describe your summers" prompts allow.
My specific issue is that last summer was spent at a research internship, and I'm not sure whether they want the details of my research project. I have room to include exactly what my project was about, but I'm not sure if any adcoms would care. Would it be better to just write a sentence summing up the overall goal of the research?
Also, would it be better to elaborate on how what I did during the summer affected me, or are adcoms expecting a matter-of-fact list of activities? What did you personally put on your app?</p>
<p>I was pritty pithy with my research. I just said something along the lines of me improving upon my lab skills through utilization of w/e to genotype rats. If your going the essay route, most people say you prbly shouldnt go over 2000 characters.</p>
<p>Oh hmm, it’s not so much an essay as a list activity –> explain activity –> explain significance. Like a really elaborate list. But it’s still over 2000 characters. Does that sound like it’ll be a problem? Each section is only about 1 sentence, except for the research project; I ended up not explaining what I did in detail, but I used a couple sentences to describe the significance.</p>
<p>If the research is actually substantial you may want to submit it to the appropriate department separately rather than waving your arms to the admissions people and coming off as jargon.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s possible to avoid jargon, even if it’s just a one-sentence sum up like I’m using right now…
And I’m tempted to submit it to the appropriate department, but I don’t think it’s substantial enough for that, at an ivy league school. But I figure they’d probably want to know more about the experience than the end result, so I’ll just leave it at that haha.</p>