I have room for all of them, so that isn’t the issue.
-Church youth group
-National Honor Society
-Travel
-Writing
I’ve been involved in my church youth group throughout high school. Freshman and Sophomore years I attended once a week, Junior and Senior (current) years, twice a week most of the time (Due to previous scheduling conflicts being removed) I’ve also attended an average of two retreats per year. My faith is very important to me, although I’m applying entirely to secular colleges.
My two qualms about including it:
- I’m not sure how colleges look at being religious. Is there any chance of this being a negative? Or, even more to the point, I guess: is there any chance of it being a positive? Should I even bother?
- I’m not sure what to put in the description. I haven’t held any kind of leadership position, or done anything else notable, like going on a mission trip. Basically all I’ve done is show up and participate. Which I enjoy, but… it’s kind of lackluster on a college application.
I am definitely planning on putting National Honor Society somewhere on the application. The question is where. I know most people recommend listing it in the awards category, but I’m very active in my chapter, and it feels much more like an activity than an award to me. Furthermore, I’m the Assistant Service Project Leader, which requires me to plan, coordinate, implement, and supervise tutoring sessions, which I really enjoy. In this case, where should I put it? Would it be reasonable to put NHS in awards, and Assistant Service Project Leader in Activities? Or would that come across as fluff?
There’s also the issue that the hours per week, and even the weeks per year, are very different between 11 and 12 grade. Last year was the first year my chapter existed, and it started about halfway through the year. My only participation until late spring, at which point we began to assign service project leaders and plan the project, was attending meetings. This year I have about 3 hours a week of NHS duties.
The question for travel and writing is basically the same: where do you draw the line on whether or not to include activities you do outside of organized groups?
I tend to do a lot of traveling. In the past year, my trips have included:
-The Smoky Mountains to hike and see the leaves with extended family
-NYC for a Christmas/Sweet 16 present from my grandparents
-Skiing
-The beach with extended family for the fourth of July, which went directly into a trip to MD to visit family, with stops in Williamsburg and DC
-A family road trip down the Pacific coast, from Seattle to San Diego
I know that I’m very very lucky to be able to travel so much, and I take each trip as an opportunity for new experiences and learning about the science, history, and whatever else might make each place special. I also intend to touch on this in my essay, but from some of what I’ve seen, it sounds like it very well might fit into the activities section. The other question, then, is how to put down the hours. Obviously only as many weeks as I’m actually gone each year, but how many hours a week do I put down? All the hours? The hours I’m awake? The hours I’m doing certain activities? (But what activities?)
There’s also the issue that some of my travel, for instance, skiing, has been counted for academic credit (I go to an online school, and any physical activity I do, beyond everyday stuff like walking around, is counted towards my necessary PE credits). Does that mean the trip can’t count at all? (I guess probably) But what about trips where I went hiking or played sports with my family (which is also on my PE log)? Do I have to go through and figure out exactly how many hours I spent on those activities, and remove them from my travel hours? Or is that overkill, since those hours are so little in the context of the whole trip? I’m sorry if any of this is confusing. I’m a little confused at the moment too… :(|)
I also do a lot of writing. It’s my passion, and my dream is to be a published author. Highlights include:
-Writing 50k words in a month during (and thereby winning) NaNoWriMo
-Starting a writing club with some of my friends in 9th grade. It’s not official in any way, but we’ve been very active for just over three years now, and we still meet weekly, even though we all struggle to do as much writing as we’d like to what with school and extracurriculars
-Winning my school’s weekly creative writing contest three times (Out of five entries). I also plan to continue entering whenever I can this year
-Maintaining a blog of my completed works. I haven’t been as active on it lately, as I’ve mostly been working on bigger projects, and have been thinking about seeking publication for what shorter works I’ve been writing, and don’t want to mess up first publication rights
-Having five skits I wrote performed by my drama troupe. (This has a similar issue to some of the travel things; that performance was counted towards a theater credit. The time I spent writing wasn’t counted, though,so I think it should be fine. Thoughts?)
Thank you so much for any help you can offer! It means a lot to me. 