The University of Florida is using the Coalition app and is the only school among those I am applying to using this app. Beyond the “standard” Coalition app there are some supplemental information UF is asking for but I have a few questions and would appreciate your opinion.
(1) “List and Describe your community service activities. Please include your role in the activity and your level of responsibility.” The Coalition app already has a section for community service. So this is a duplicate? Or is this intentional and the idea is to allow you to use this space to provide ADDITIONAL information to what was already stated in the Coalition app community service section? The max is 950 characters (not words) so it’s not a lot.
(2) "List any programs or activities that helped you prepare for higher education such as University Outreach, Talent Search, Upward Bound etc (950 characters). I have already listed all my activities in the app (Community services, part time employment, extracurricular) and amongst those is a junior summer engineering league I went to for a month which I believe qualify…but it’s already listed and described there. Do I duplicate it here? Or to rewrite that and word it as to WHY it helped me prepare for college?
(3) The big essay I was given a choice of “experience to shape your character” to “how your belief was challenged” to “meaningful contribution to the greater good” to “hardest part of being a teenager” and the last one is to submit a topic of your choice. I am tempted to use my common app essay here. BUT…would using a “custom topic” here means they would assume you pasted an essay you used for another purpose here for UF? The thing is the common app essay is 650 words when I put it in here it translated to 3750 characters and UF wants no more then 2500 characters so I have to chop almost 1/3 off which means major rewrite anyways. FINALLY if you do submit a topic of your own do you provide your own heading/subject/prompt as part of it or do you just dive into the essay?