Writing About Extracurriculars in Your College Essays

Webinar Transcription

2024-04-09 – Writing About Extracurriculars in Your College Essays

Lydia: Hello, everyone. Welcome to, “Writing About Extracurriculars in Your College Essays.” My name is Lydia Hollon and I’m your moderator today, as well as a senior advisor at CollegeAdvisor. And I’ve been with the company for about three years now. In addition to advising students, I’m also one of the co captains of our essay review team and a proud graduate of New York State University. And in addition to my work with CollegeAdvisor, I’m also an education consultant who works with schools, government agencies and nonprofits across the country to make education more accessible as well as a former teacher. So to orient everyone with the webinar timing for tonight, we’re going to start off with a presentation and then answer your questions in a live Q&A. On the sidebar, you can download our slides and you can start submitting questions in the Q&A tab. We will also be recording the session so that you can review the webinar again, but now we’re going to meet our presenter, Anna Vande Velde.

Anna: Hi everyone, my name is Anna. Thanks Lydia for the intro. Um, just to give you a quick rundown of my background, I studied psychology at Carnegie Mellon. I really thought I was going to end up as a clinical psychologist, but I didn’t. I joined the workforce for a few years, ended up at Harvard Law School where I graduated a couple years ago. Um, I’m now situated in Ottawa, Canada. Um, I’m a non profit defense attorney in addition to the work which I love doing with CollegeAdvisor. Um, in addition to advising students, I’m also a co-captain with Lydia on our essay review team. Um, uh, so I did tell Lydia. Before you all logged in, um, did I invite her at any time to interrupt me, to add, to clarify things I’m saying? Um, she is truly an essay expert as well. So I’m thrilled to be here with her and with all of you.

Lydia: All right. So we’re going to go ahead and kick off our first poll, which is what grade are you in? If you’re a parent, just feel free to respond with that other option. I’m opening the poll now and to just give you all a little bit of time while you fill that out. Anna, I’m curious. I know that the eclipse was yesterday and where you live, you had really great visibility.

What was that like being able to see the eclipse?

Anna: Yeah, yeah, I’m fortunate we had a 99 percent total eclipse here. And for the last eclipse that was in North America, I actually traveled to South Carolina to see it. So it was really fun to compare the 99 percent to the 100%. It was drastically different. Like the total eclipse, things get dark and 99%, like you could tell it was getting darker and it just felt kind of weird and ominous out. But that 1 percent of sunshine really powers through and it made me realize how bright the sun really is.

Lydia: Wow. Yeah. I, I think I had a similar realization being in Atlanta where it was like 85%. I still thought that 85 percent it was going to get pretty dark anyway, but as you just described, it seems like you need the totality in order to truly have it go like pitch black for a little bit. Um, I’m gonna go ahead and close the poll now. It seems like we’ve got 25 percent across the board, 25 percent in 9th grade, 25 percent 10th grade, 25 percent 11th, and then 25 percent 12th.

So really even split here. I hope that all of you are able to benefit from this no matter where you’re at in your college application process. And I will go and pass it on to you, Anna.

Anna: Awesome. Thank you. Uh, it’s helpful to know what grade you are in is where. walking through our topic for this evening.

Um, so I wanted to start with where in the application process would you even talk about your extracurricular experiences? And the answer is pretty much everywhere, um, is an okay place to talk about them. There is a demographic yada yada. Not going to come up there, but in any of the other sections, they might become relevant.

So, I think the most obvious section is the Activities, Work, and Family Responsibilities section, because it’s in the name, the Activities section. But also under Academic Honor and Achievements, you might reference extracurriculars there. In your personal statement, it might make sense to talk about them.

Certainly in any supplemental essays, um, which I’ll describe in a second. And then any letters of recommendation from your teachers could be a good place for extracurriculars to be mentioned. So when I say, going back, uh, writing supplements, Especially since we have some 9th and 10th graders here. You might not be familiar with this yet.

I know I sure wasn’t when I was in 9th grade. Um, you’ve probably all heard of the personal statement. It’s okay if you haven’t. That’s the essay that’s going to go basically all of your applications. Um, It’s a very, um, broad open ended question. Uh, you can answer it lots of different ways. Um, and that goes to all of the schools.

Some colleges have additional essay questions they want you to answer that go only to those schools. So we call them supplementals or college specific questions. And those really run the gamut. Some of them are very broad. They might want to know, like, why you want to study a certain major, why you want to go to their school, and they might ask you to describe an extracurricular experience. Um, so certainly a relevant place for extracurriculars.

So we asked what grade you all are in. I want to preface this slide by saying, if you feel like you are behind on this timeline, please don’t freak out. This is our suggestion. It’s not the only way to do it. And certainly some of these could be combined. Um, if you wanted to try and catch up to what we suggest, but in terms of a timeline for writing your essays, We suggest that right around now, so juniors, spring of your junior year, start brainstorming topics for your personal statement.

I believe the Common App has already published what questions they’re going to be using next year. I see Lydia nodding her head. I also believe they have not changed at all from this year. So take a look at those questions. You’ll see what I mean about how open ended they are. And just see if any of them resonate with you and start brainstorming topics that you might write about and how you might respond to one of those prompts.

Then this summer, when you’re hopefully a little less busy, uh, when school is out, Start drafting your personal statement, uh, the summer before your senior year. I promise you, your senior year self will thank you so much for doing that. You will be ahead of your peers and you’ll be You should be setting yourself up for a more successful application process and a less stressful senior year.

Because then, by the end of your summer, you can really be wrapping up your personal statement and start getting to work on those supplemental essays that we talked about in the last slide. That means when you walk into your senior year, You can walk in ready to ask for feedback on your essays from your CollegeAdvisor, from an educator or two that you trust, family.

Um, it just gives you time to workshop them and make sure that they’re tip top shape, ready to go while you’re not also balancing, sorry, so you’re not writing all these essays while also balancing your senior year. Which is a lot of work. Okay, so why, why do we have a webinar on this topic? Why does it make sense to write about your extracurriculars?

There’s a lot of good reasons, a lot of good answers to this question, I think. Um, these are a few I thought of. In the activities section, um, you might know you can list 10 activities or extracurriculars that you’re involved in, but you’re really limited in how you can describe Your participation. So it’s 150 character max.

Um, I used to reference Twitter at this point in the presentation. Now that just really dates me because it’s not even called Twitter anymore. Um, but it’s a really short description. Which makes it very difficult to convey things like meaningfulness and personal growth and things that admissions readers really want to see.

Um, so you might want to discuss them in more depth in your essays. Talking about extracurriculars in your essays lets you highlight activities that are especially important to you. And they can be really great sources of stories. And if you listen to any of my webinars, on essay writing in general, you will hear me use the word story a lot.

Um, because I, I think that’s the best way to draw readers in. is to tell them a story. And when you’re engaged in an activity that you really like, there’s probably a lot of interesting stories that come up.

Lydia: And something I would add to that is also, um, especially if you end up working with an advisor here, a CollegeAdvisor, something that you’ll hear a lot is just talking about what your persona, your candidate profile is, and like how do we Make sure that the application and the impression that you’re putting forward aligns with the program that you’re applying to and things like that.

And a lot of the time, it’s the extracurriculars that really help to sell the kind of persona that you’re trying to convey. For example, if you’re saying that you want to be, um, pre med but major in engineering, for example, having examples of how you did robotics or how you did, you know, future doctors of whatever, things like that.

It allows you to take the time to really explain how you’re already doing things to become the person that you want to be and provide examples of how you’re preparing yourself for that outside of the classroom.

Anna: I think that’s such an important point, Lydia, that I’m going to add a slide to this for the next time I do it about.

Candidate profile or sometimes we call it brand. Um, because that is really crucial here and one way I Explain it to the students. I work with is admissions readers especially on the first pass, don’t have a whole lot of time with each application, handful of minutes. And so at the end of the day, after they’ve read a hundred applications, we can’t expect them to remember every single extracurricular on your list.

Every single grade you got in every class. The goal is for them to remember a couple of key high level things about you. Um, and then that is exactly what Lydia was saying, is that extracurriculars are a great way to convey those traits. Um, so if you’re, I don’t know, politically engaged and a volunteer, things that are like high level that would be easy to remember walking away can be conveyed really well through your extracurriculars.

I also really like showing this list. I promise I’m not going to read it because that would be super boring. Um, But I like showing this list to all of my students when we start talking about extracurriculars, because I have a lot of students who say, Ugh, I don’t even have that many. Like, I’m only in one or two clubs.

And sometimes we talk and we decide, Okay, let’s find a few more things for you to get engaged in. And every time, we find at least one or two more things that they’re already doing that can go on the extracurricular list or be discussed in your essays. Um, that colleges care about. So things I like to point out that I think students often don’t think about are cultural activities, family responsibilities, if there’s anyone you need to care for, um, if you need to work a paid job, any religious involvement, Anything you do that is not required of you by your school could be a good source, uh, for an extracurricular and certainly for something you can discuss in an essay.

Um, so I just want to say, I want to frame it that way. So as we’re talking about discussing extracurriculars in your essays, I don’t need to think, we’re talking just about formal clubs at your school. Um, it’s much broader than that.

Okay. Oh, look, there it is. I told you I use this word a lot. How can students write meaningful essays about their activities? Tell a story. Put the reader in your shoes. And show them what that experience was like for you. Talking about an extracurricular in an essay should look very different than how it looks in the activities section, where you’re limited to 150 words.

In the activity section, really, you’re just listing any honors, any accomplishments, um, and then I challenge students to find action words, sort of like on a resume, to really emphasize what they have done. Um, If there’s no room to talk about how you’ve grown, what you have learned, if there’s a particularly meaningful moment you had during one of those activities, that is the sort of thing I want you to think about for your essay.

I also think it’s valuable to think about how does this activity that I’m discussing Interest in college career and beyond. There are some obvious connections, right? Like if you are a math Olympiad and you want to be a math major, that connection is pretty clear. I think, and I’ve seen students do it, that you can draw really clear connections from seemingly disparate interests, or at least unrelated interests as well.

Um, so for example, maybe when you were in a cooking club, you learned that you really liked deductive reasoning, and so for that reason you want to study math. That’s not obvious on its face if you just are telling me about this. Fun thing you did in cooking club. Unclear how it relates to your college interest, but if you draw that connection, you can really level up the essay and show why the activity was so meaningful to you.

So, how do you get started? I really, really think that the first sentence you write is the hardest. I think getting started is really difficult. So, if you remember in the timeline slide, um, it said junior, spring, start brainstorming ideas. And when we say brainstorm, we mean write them down. Because I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a lot of moments where I have a great idea, I don’t make a note of it in my phone, I don’t write it down, and the next day I’m like, Dang it!

What was that great revelation I had? I can’t remember. Write it down. Keeping in mind everything I’ve said so far, that means as you’re living your life, doing the activities you enjoy, if there’s a moment that strikes you as really interesting or helps you figure out. What you want to study in college or who you are as a person.

Those are the types of moments I would jot down so that you can remember, Oh yeah, that was a really impactful moment. Really good stories can come out of those. So write every idea down and then talk out your options. With your CollegeAdvisor, with a family member, a trusted teacher, show them the prompt, get feedback, have the dialogue that will help you figure out how exactly you’re going to turn that moment, that story, into a coherent essay.

Turns out I do have a bullet point about Lydia’s point earlier, but I still think I should make it earlier. I think that’d be more helpful. When you’re brainstorming these ideas and writing them down and then going through to pick what you’re gonna write about, think about your personal narrative.

candidate profile, your brand. I’m sorry I’ve used multiple, uh, terms to describe it. I mean the same thing. A couple of themes that tie your story together that you want the admissions readers to remember at the end of the day.

Okay. Look, I found another way to say, tell a story. Show, don’t tell. This is what makes a good essay. So, In the interest of showing, instead of just telling, I have an example for you. You could say, and I had a student write a sentence similar to this, Sharing my writing with others has always scared me.

Okay, that’s not the worst sentence to start an essay with. I do learn something about the student. I challenge them, though, to put the reader in their shoes. So they could show how it felt instead of telling them. What they came back with I thought was pretty great. Uh, My second grade hands shook as I approached Mrs. Sanchez’s desk with a handwritten essay. So they both convey to me that sharing their writing is an intimidating thing, but the one really helps me picture them in second grade with their little hands shaking, walking up to the desk. It feels more genuine, and it’s more memorable, and I think it’s more likely to get a reader to want to learn more, and they keep reading.

So. I think I’ve danced around this point, but what makes a good essay is anything that can’t be easily captured elsewhere. So if you can capture it in your extracurriculars list, it’s not the best use of your essay space.

Which means you don’t want to use your essays to list a bunch of accomplishments. They can see that more easily in a list. Frankly, it’s harder to read an essay format. So leave that for the list and use the essays to convey something new that they can’t learn anywhere else. Every word counts, so you don’t want to be repeating what is in the list section.

SAT words are super fun. They make us sound fancy. They are great for the SAT. If you don’t talk like that, though, your essays are not going to sound genuine. And at the end of the day, the essay I think is sort of the The heart of the application, it’s where the readers really get to know you as a person.

So if you’re not communicating in a way that’s natural for you, then you’re selling yourself short and you’re losing the opportunity to convey who you are.

In terms of revising essays, I definitely think it’s important to take time away, come back with fresh eyes. I do that for my own students essays, especially if we’re on round three or four of edits, I need to take a break. Um, and then when you come back to it, ask yourself, can I underline where my themes are?

What is this adding to my application? Uh, this is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. It also helps with word count to look out for passive language. So instead of saying, I was running to the beach, or I hope to be able to, um, you could say, I ran to the beach, or I hope to run. Uh, it cuts the word count a bit, which is often helpful for students.

And I think more importantly, it just makes the writing clearer. This next point I find challenging still to do with my own writing, and I’ve been doing this a long time, but read it out loud. You can go in a room by yourself, close the door, play a sound machine so no one can hear you, whatever it takes to feel comfortable doing it, read it out loud, because then your body is going to tell you if it sounds like you or not. If it doesn’t, ask yourself, okay, how would I really say this?

course, maybe it’s not of course. Um, there’s a certain level of professionalism you want in your essays. Um, so if you say, I’m going to date myself here too, but OMG or LOL, things like that, not appropriate in your essay, but think about how you might, how you might Explain what’s in your essay to a teacher or if you went to a job interview.

What would your authentic voice be in that room? And how can you get that in your essay if you feel like it’s not there? It’s hard to do. I think it’s really valuable. This next bullet point is also really hard to do, but ask for feedback. It is vulnerable to share your writing, and it is so valuable. And don’t be afraid to ask for really specific feedback.

Can you identify my themes? Do you think this sounds like me? You know me really well. Does this capture my voice? Is this who I am? And then, good writing is rewriting. So be open to incorporating that feedback, uh, to make your essay.

Lydia: And, um, before we go into the poll, I just wanted to add, um, when it comes to the feedback, something that I’d say is a common pitfall for a lot of students is there are some students who don’t want anyone to read their essay at all.

And so they never show it to anyone. And then, um, They end up feeling like they are the only expert on their essay and you know, whatever they think is best is the best and that’s not always the best approach, like Anna said. But there’s also the other side where there’s some students who they are so worried that their essay isn’t good.

that they show it to every possible person that they know, and that can also cause problems because at the end of the day, everyone has different preferences for how they like things to be written. Everyone has different ideas of what’s important, and especially when you’re asking people who are really close to you to give feedback on your essay, they may have different opinions about what’s important in your story and what’s not important, or if you’re talking about something that’s more vulnerable, and you show it to someone who is You know, a close part of your life.

They may have opinions about what you should share, what you shouldn’t share. So I think it’s also important when asking others for feedback to be intentional about the people that you ask and also intentional about how many people you ask for input on. And I think it’s always good to try and get someone who can be somewhat of a neutral party.

and somewhat removed from whatever topic you’re talking about, especially when discussing extracurriculars, because a common mistake that students have is if they’re talking about a really niche extracurricular that has a lot of, you know, jargon in it, or has a lot of acronyms that they use, sometimes someone who is also in that world may not catch that you’re kind of using shorthand um, in certain parts of your essay, versus someone who’s on the essay review team, like myself or Anna.

We may be able to recognize that, hey, some of the things that you’re saying, like it makes grammatical sense, but because I’m not a part of this world, you may want to take more time to explain it.

Anna: That’s a really good point, Lydia. And I’m laughing to myself over here because with my law school personal statement, which ironically was about finding my voice.

I asked like 14 people for feedback and I reached a point where the feedback was conflicting and I had to decide for myself, what is my voice? And who am I, like, which feedback am I taking? And where am I just trusting my gut? And totally agree to be thoughtful about who you ask for feedback.

Lydia: Yeah, it’s it’s a tricky thing, but you figure it out.

Okay, so we’re gonna open up the next poll, which is where are you in the college application process? It’s open now. So while I give everyone in the audience a chance to answer the question, Anna, I’m just curious, what are you eating for dinner? What did you eat for dinner tonight? I know I still haven’t eaten yet, so.

Anna: Oh, I love talking about food. Um, I had, my answer’s not interesting, but I love talking about it. I had a salad, um, and some chicken for dinner tonight, and After this, I’m going to go eat a popcorn snack. So

Lydia: I love popcorn. I eat it more than I probably should. I’m having some Korean barbecue chicken and a smoothie for dinner.

Anna: Oh, that sounds way better than mine.

Lydia: And let’s look at our responses. Seems like the majority of you, uh, about 45%, well, not majority, but the plurality of you are in the researching school stage at about 45%. We’ve got 18% that are working on their essays and 18% that are getting the application materials together.

And then a few people. Okay, now we’re going to close that poll and I’ll hand it back

Anna: over to you, Anna. Awesome, thank you. That spread makes sense to me given the spread of students we have with us, so thank you all for sharing. Um, so overall, tips for describing your extracurriculars, if it’s in the activities section, or Think resume.

If you don’t have a resume, that would be fair. I didn’t have one at your age. You can Google resume templates, how to write a resume. I think what’s helpful there and what transfers well to the activity section is the focus on action words, the focus on verbs. So, If you’re describing debate club, please don’t use those 150 characters to explain what debate club is.

You can assume that the readers know. They have some schema for what a debate club is. Um, there might be, I know there are like niche organizations out there where it’s not obvious from the name, so then you, Want to provide, I think, some context for what the organization does, but still as best you can, focus on what you do through the organization, highlight any leadership you do for them, um, focus, yeah, like I said, on what you’ve done, not what the club is for, be as specific as you can, so instead of saying organized fundraising events, How many fundraising events?

What types were they? So organize three, I don’t know, walk for the cures or something. The more specific you can be, the better. It just conveys more information. In the activity section, full sentences are not required. Of course, you want it to be really clear what you’re saying. Punctuation can be very helpful, but it doesn’t need to be a full formal sentence.

In the essays, Absolutely, we need formal complete sentences, complete paragraphs, and put the reader in your shoes and just tell a story of one, two things that you have accomplished, that you’ve learned. Um, it should look very different from how you talk about your extracurriculars in the activity section.

So maybe in the activity section, if you say that you’ve organized three walkathons in an essay. Maybe it’s a story of the first walkathon or a really meaningful moment you had in one of them and then tell us why it was meaningful and show us how you grew and what you learned about yourself.

Some things to avoid. Um, I think I covered this one. You don’t want to Frankly, waste your word count describing the organization as best you can. Everything in the application should be about you, not in a self centered way. Just because that’s literally what the application is about. It’s about you. Um, you should not.

Use lists of accomplishments in an essay. Um, I say negativity, unconstructive critique. That doesn’t mean, I’m not saying you shouldn’t write about something you didn’t enjoy or that you failed at initially. I’m just saying be very thoughtful with the framing. So instead of saying debate club at my school sucked, um, be really specific.

You joined debate club. What did you notice? What was your reaction to it? Maybe there’s some concern that some needs weren’t being met, and then what did you do about it? That makes the story have a positive arc, and it makes it about you and what you’ve done, but it’s still talking about a negative topic.

So, I wouldn’t say it’s something you can’t write about, just be really thoughtful with the framing. Um, I did mean to add to this list, because I I had a student write an essay about this recently, um, it was about a romantic relationship ending. In general, I would avoid that in your college essays. Um, I think it’s just the truth that people reading these applications are going to assume the high school relationships often end.

Um, and. I just, I think it’s selling yourself short. I think you probably have other stories to tell that the adults reading these will find more compelling. Um, so personally, I would, I would avoid that topic, um, but ready to feel free to disagree with me.

Lydia: Uh, no, I, I do not agree with you. Um, I think it’s, it’s difficult because, uh, when you are in high school and when you are a teenager, there are a lot of things that feel really important and pivotal for you, but they may not seem as important or pivotal to someone who is, you know, in their late twenties or thirties and, you know, in the similar stage of life as myself or Anna.

Um, And has, you know, a different perception of what should be important. And so I think sometimes when writing an essay just in general, you have to be mindful of the audience that you’re speaking to. The audience that you’re writing to is, like I said, someone about the age of myself or the age of Anna.

Like a millennial who, you know, is like, has gone through certain things. And so you’re trying to somewhat speak to them. While maintaining your own voice and being mindful of the things that they may find interesting or that they may, they may care about, um, and looping back to the point on negativity and just unconstructive critique, I could not agree more than that.

I think there has been this big misconception, I think, just among students in general, that a great essay is one that has some big tragedy or disaster in it. and that is not necessary at all to have a great essay. I’ve read amazing essays that really didn’t touch on any sort of strife in that person’s life.

Um, but if you do decide to write about something negative, which I don’t think is necessarily bad, I think a good rule of thumb is to always be able to talk about what you did to address it. So if you’re going to talk about how my debate club was so unorganized and it was such a mess. Don’t just leave it at, oh, so I decided to quit debate club, or I just decided to complain one time, and then I just was really upset about it.

Actually talk about like the, the trajectory that you took the debate club on in response to the issues that you saw. Like, oh, I went and decided to run for our executive board, and I became, um, the vice president and I was able to help us have more structured practices and now we’re, you know, actually competitive when we go to, you know, competitions and things like that.

Like be able to tell an actual story of how you saw something negative or how you had a critique and you decided to be an agent for change. That actually speaks to your character. It’s not very endearing to just be this person who. is very good at pointing out things that are wrong, but does not actually do anything about it.

So you just have to have both of those things. Don’t just have one.

Anna: I love that. That was a really helpful way to frame that, Lydia. Thank you. Um, also, please feel free to chime in on this one because I know you have also read hundreds and hundreds of essays. Um, so my experience reviewing essays about extracurriculars. Is that truly you can relate almost anything back to your career or your academic interests?

Um, because you can take it as high level as teamwork, as learning about the importance of introspection, things that apply to really every career. Um, so I challenge you, um, to not, not give up if there’s like an extracurricular experience you really want to write about and it asks you to tie it back to your academic interests.

There’s a way to do it. Um, You just gotta really think about what you get out of the activity, what you learn from it. And I think that’s a really helpful time to talk it out with someone like a CollegeAdvisor. Any amount of impact can be meaningful. Um, so you’ll read online, you’ll hear from advisors, but when you’re writing, you want to show what impact you’ve had on the world around you.

And the story does not need to be TV worthy. I see students getting caught up on that point too, um, that it feels overwhelming to find like the best, most like impressive story. Um, It doesn’t have to be TV worthy. I had a student once write about, um, her dad made some offhanded comment about, uh, common sense.

Like, oh, that person doesn’t have any common sense. And my student took that comment and went down this whole philosophical path of what even is TV. Sense and realize they wanted to study philosophy. Um, so the story she was telling on its surface is not interesting, right? A dad making an offhanded comment about someone not having common sense that happens every day, but she made it interesting because she showed how it was such an impactful and meaningful moment to her and how she then used that to join philosophy club, pursue her interests and have impact in her school community that way.

So there’s interesting stories everywhere.

Uh, last piece of advice, I think I’ve said all this before, so this is in summary. Show, don’t tell. Um, put us in your shoes, tell a story. Keep your list of things in the activities section, not your essays. Start writing, like when it’s time, just start writing. Don’t worry about perfection at the beginning.

Good writing is rewriting, so the first thing. Things you write aren’t going to be perfect. That’s okay. That’s true for super accomplished authors. So it’s going to be true for you as well. And then most importantly, be genuine. Bring yourself, bring your own voice to the essays. You’re the only one who has that voice.

So it is unique and it is important and that’s what colleges are looking for. And then I know it’s hard through all the stress that’s involved with this process, but as best you can have fun because writing about your extracurriculars should be you writing about the things you love doing. So hopefully, You can find a little bit of fun in it and just let your passions really shine through.

Lydia: All right. Thank you so much, Anna. That is the end of the presentation part of our webinar, but we are going to continue. I hope that you all found this information helpful and remember that you can download the slides from the link in the handouts tab. So now we’re going to jump into the live Q& A where I’m going to read questions that you all submitted and then read them out loud so that you all, our panelist, Anna, can give you an answer.

So if your Q&A tab isn’t letting you submit questions for any reason, just double check that you joined the webinar through the custom link in your email and not through the webinar landing page. And try logging out and logging back in through the link in your email. And again, we cannot give you personalized admissions assessments.

So please don’t share your profile or really detailed questions, um, in the Q and a tab, just because we cannot summarize your chance of getting into any college. We can provide general advice about the topic. So now we’re going to jump in and Anna, our first question, um, and this is kind of just based on how we did talk about, you know, college application profiles and a persona and things like that, and how sometimes writing about an extracurricular can be helpful in supporting that persona, but does the activity that you write about have to be related to your major or your career interest?

Anna: No, definitely not. Um, if it’s a meaningful activity to you, I think it’s worth writing about, and as I said earlier, it depends on what the prompt is. So, let me step, take a step back. If the, if it’s a supplemental essay question and it is asking you specifically about an extracurricular you’ve done that relates to your major, I would do the best I can to find an activity that, More on the surface relates to your interest, but especially if they’re not even asking that and you’re just thinking about your brand and how, how you’re presenting yourself, you can write about anything.

Um, I have a pre med student now who is a very accomplished pianist. I would imagine when the time comes, she’s going to talk about piano. in at least one of her essays. I also am confident that we’ll be able to find ways that her, what she’s learned through music and piano lessons have helped her figure out what she wants to do with her life, have helped her figure out who she is as a person.

And that’s all related to your career and academic interests. Uh, so like I said before, there’s always, there’s always a way to draw a connection. It’s just sometimes more obvious than than others.

Lydia: I think that’s true. I’m a huge proponent of if you all four years of high school have been truly doing things that interest you and that you have a passion for, there’s always going to be some sort of through line that That you can connect to all your activities through Kit2 and realize, hey, like there actually is a story here.

I think the students that tend to have the hardest time trying to talk about a given activity and connect it to their future goals are the ones who kind of just did whatever they thought looked good on paper. I can even say like speaking for myself, I had no idea what I was going to end up majoring in until I became like a senior in high school and had to pick something.

And then what I picked is I reflected on what I had done my past four years. I was like, Oh, that actually makes a ton of sense. Like I was not really being intentional about the stuff that I did, but it makes sense that I would want to major in that. Cause that’s the kind of stuff that I tended to gravitate towards.

Um, so, uh, yeah, like a little aside, but, uh,

Anna: I love that it made me think Lydia of colleges are not expecting you to know with complete accuracy what you want to do and where you’re going to end up. They know the stats on students switching majors in college. It’s very, very common. So that said, they might ask, they’re going to ask like, why are you applying here?

Why are you saying you want to study this? So you need to have an answer to that. Don’t fall into the trap that I see some students falling into of, I need to have a cookie cutter, perfect application that’s totally aligned around this one major. Because they know that’s not how life works, they’re not looking for that.

They’re looking for unique, interesting people who are following their passions.

Lydia: Definitely. Um, and speaking of passions, um, I think a lot of students have heard that sports is one of the most common topics that students tend to write about. And now some students are somewhat afraid to write about it. So is it true that admissions officers just hate reading about sports and essays because it’s done so much?

Is it cliche? Should we avoid doing it? And if there are exceptions, what are they?

Anna: Yeah. I have heard from admissions officers that they read a lot of sports essays. I’ve never been in their position, so I’m going to summarize from my perspective what I think their experience is. And Lydia, please chime in here as well.

I refer to this phenomenon as like the copy and paste phenomenon. So if there’s something in your sports essay or any essay that could be copied and pasted into someone else’s essay and make complete sense, So, I’m going to speak baseball for a second. It was bottom of the ninth, bases loaded. I’m up to the plate.

You could copy and paste that into a lot of people’s essays. That, I think, is a bit cliche. And, it’s not, it’s setting the scene, but it’s setting a pretty typical scene. I would challenge you to instead ask why you’re writing about that moment in the first place. Why was it so meaningful to you? And then put the reader really in your shoes.

So like, what were you thinking when you walked up to the plate, what were you feeling viscerally in your body? And then make sure you do the work of taking the reader through whatever it is that was so meaningful about that moment, how you grew, what you learned, um, what it says about your character, you as a person.

I think if you do that work, you can bring a sports essay out of the world of cliches. I think it’s, it’s harder because there are a lot of sports cliches and um, a lot of essays about them. But Lydia, I’m curious to hear your hand, your answer to this question.

Lydia: Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head.

Like, I would never say that there’s, there are probably a small handful of topics that you probably should never write about. But almost any topic can become a good topic if you are a strong writer and you have a strong story to tell with like the experience that you’re discussing. But, um, I think that most people are going to struggle to talk about sports in a way that is really fresh.

And I think even if you’re talking about, okay, well, what did you learn from it? Like for me, If I see that she played, let’s say, basketball, right, like I played multiple sports in high school, so and I think, you know, most people that are probably reading your essay has at least played some sort of team sport in their life, they can look and see, okay, this person played basketball or baseball, there are probably certain skills that most people gain from playing that kind of sport, right?

You’re probably going to talk about how you can. Learn to work with other people. You learn the value of teamwork. You learn how to be a good sportsman and, you know, be courteous to other people. You learn how to collaborate. You learn how to be a leader, right? Like, you learn the value of just like physical fitness and things like that.

So if your essay is just going to be I played basketball in high school and I learned how to work together as a team. And then I was captain of my basketball team and I learned how to manage my team. But like, you don’t really get into specifics about any of it. It’s just like, I did this sport and then I developed these skills that anyone would probably expect that I would.

develop after playing a sport for so many years, that isn’t really going to say much. However, if you’re able to talk about something that, like Anna said, is really unique, like maybe your team, like you help build your team from the ground up. Like I read an essay last cycle about a student who, Their school, like, didn’t have a squash team at all.

They came from like another country and then they moved to the States and squash is not very big here. So they helped start the team from the ground up and through like starting this team, they also were able to. kind of be like this cultural liaison between their original country’s culture and American culture.

So that was like something that was kind of fresh. It was about sports, but it had a different kind of message to it than something that you would normally read.

Okay. So another question that I’ve got is for extracurriculars, when you write up an extracurricular, do you have to have some sort of product that you can talk about or some sort of achievement, um, that you can connect to it? Or is it okay to talk about something that you literally are not very good at and don’t really have much to show for?

Or maybe it’s just something that’s not very competitive, like reading or watching movies?

Anna: Yes, you can write about anything. Anytime a student comes to me and says, I’ve been thinking about this, can I write my essay about this? My answer is always yes. And my next question is, Why do you want to write about that?

What is it going to convey to the readers that they’re not getting anywhere else in your application? And is what it’s conveying something really unique and important about you? If the answer to those questions is yes, then I think you should absolutely write about it. There’s a section on the, on the application where you can fill in honors and achievements and all that.

So essays don’t have to be about the most shiny, impressive, prestigious things. Um, they just need to be genuine, and help the reader get to know you more, and your interests, and that’s it. I think that’s it. So yeah, totally. Right. About whatever. If it checks all those boxes,

Lydia: I completely agree. It can be about, I actually like reading essays where someone’s talking about something that they’re bad at, but they just keep doing it.

It it just, like, it shows an interesting character about who that, who that person is. ’cause some people just like, don’t like doing things that they’re bad at.

Anna: Mm-Hmm. ,

Lydia: another question that we’ve got is about, uh, religious. So should we avoid writing about activities that are religious for fear of offending possibly someone that maybe is of a different faith?

Anna: Yeah, great question. Um, and I think my answer applies to religion and politics in the same way. Um, if it’s important to you, write about it. And with everything, be thoughtful in the framing. So your essay is not going to offend readers if it’s coming from the standpoint of this religious community is important to me because here’s what I’ve done within, here’s what I’ve learned, here’s how I’ve grown.

Same applies to, to politics. If the emphasis, the focus of essay is on you and what you’ve learned, how you’ve grown, your unique voice, that’s fine. What I would stay away from is spending too much time explaining a religion or a political view. I would definitely stay away from trying to convince people, readers, that your view is the one and only view.

Um, but I think colleges are really interested in having a diverse set of students with diverse world views. Um, so if anything, I would embrace that. It’s part of you. It’s part of your culture. It’s part of what It makes you who you are. Just be thoughtful in the framing. Yeah,

Lydia: completely agree. There’s a difference between being passionate and proselytizing, you know, whatever you believe, so, it’s fine to be passionate, but, like Anna said, you shouldn’t be trying to actively convert or pass judgment on people who meet.

Disagree. Um, we’re going to take a quick break from the questions before we jump back in just to remind you all that CollegeAdvisors team of over 300 former admissions officers and admissions experts like Anna and myself are ready to help you and your family navigate the college admissions process and one on one advising sessions.

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All right. So diving back into So the questions. Um, one student is asking, Is it a bad idea to write about an extracurricular that you did before you started high school? So this was something they did just in middle school or just in elementary school.

Anna: Yeah, that’s a great question. Um, I think it depends, one, on the prompt, so what the essay is asking you, and two, the question I always ask, why are you writing about that?

Okay. activity. Um, if it was a super foundational moment for you, if it’s the moment you realized, uh, I need to be a doctor or something like that, I think it could make sense. Um, please note that on the extracurricular list in that section, they’re asking just about high school involvement. Um, so I wouldn’t include it there, but in an essay, if it fits with the prompts and it brings a a new component of you to the application that fits your brand and it’s just so important to your story, then it’s, it’s fine to, fine to talk about it.

I would probably, it’s hard to say for sure without reading the essay, I would probably challenge the student at least towards the end to help the reader see like how that put you on a path to where you’re going now. So maybe ending on a forward looking note, but that’s fine. It’s hard to say that for sure without actually reading the essay.

Lydia: Um, and uh, the last question I have is somewhat similar. Uh, is it a bad idea to write about an essay that you didn’t like and that you decided to quit? To write about an

Anna: activity they didn’t like? Yeah, and that you quit, yeah. Yeah, um, no, I don’t think that’s a bad idea. Remember what we were saying earlier about negativity and how framing is really important.

So if there’s an activity you quit, I would be really careful to make sure you’re framing things from here’s what I did. I went in, I saw this, this is what I experienced, this is These are the things I tried then the best decision for me was to leave and here’s what I’m doing now So maybe again like end on a forward looking note and I would not harp on That club sucks like terrible leader yada yada.

I wouldn’t do that at all I would stick to your own experience and why it didn’t work for you And again, if you’re writing about this You should be asking yourself, why, what is it conveying about you? That is so crucial to your application. If it’s not, if it’s not conveying something essential about you, then maybe pick something else.

Lydia: I completely agree, and I think whether it’s something that you quit because you didn’t like it, or it was just something that you, for whatever reason, could only do when you were younger, very rarely should that activity probably be the thing that you’re focusing on for your essay. It should usually be something that like, oh, this is a stepping stone, like you just said, Anna, to something else that I find that I do enjoy, like the focus.

Should generally be about something that you are currently doing in some capacity or that you hope to do in the future that you like, and on a positive note to some extent. Okay, well, that concludes our presentation for tonight. There are a webinar. Thank you for joining us. And thank you, Anna, for your amazing presentation.

I know that I really enjoyed talking about this with you tonight.

Anna: Thank you, Lydia. Thank you everyone for being here.

Lydia: So this is the calendar for our April webinars. I hope that you’ll join us again for future webinars this month. Tomorrow night, you can hear from admissions officers and their advice on decoding college admissions.

And then the day after that, April 11th, you can hear directly from an admissions officer on how to make admissions office, how admissions officers make decisions. So until next time, take care and I hope you all have an amazing evening. Good night.