How do you 'tell a story' through the common app activities section?

I spent a lot of time not only shaping my ECs (through deliberate development) but, yes, creating a narrative.

First, side point: absolutely vary your ECs because internships are not the most valued by AOs.... you're applying for college.... not full-time employment. So far your narrative risks becoming: "only doing college for a job and maybe I don't value education intrinsically but as a means to an end"

One way to think about narratives is to finding a theme across unrelated ECs.

  • Typical EC blurb: NATIONAL CHAMPION, won #1st place in national public speaking competition, beating X students <insert more awards that also evidence your greatness>
  • Narrative-building EC blurb: NATIONAL CHAMPION, Used televised public speaking competition as a platform to encourage solutions to period poverty, placing 1st nationally

The second version says a LOT MORE about you. And gives you more opportunities to link other ECs (related or not) into a more cohesive story or narrative. In the above example that may be: you saw a platform and exploited it (maybe you're strategic), you chose to advocate for a marginalized group (you care about others), etc. Either of these could be themes of character you surface in your app through other EC descriptions or essays, etc. One theme I always recommend highlighting: CURIOSITY.

One issue I find is that people are so obsessed with their own achievements that they simply freak out when I recommend leaving some out to either (1) make their narrative more clear (i.e. remove distractions), or (2) open some space for narrative-building, lmao. These, for some, become emotional decisions.... and sometimes it's just really not understanding the value of strategy (i.e. their strategy is to appear to be "the best" simply through shear volume of achievements).

So personally, for example, I had a lot of debate awards but one big one. I choose to not mention the mid awards and results and let the big one speak for itself.... and most of my description focused on how I got there (had to raise funds myself, self-coach, etc.), what I focused on (my issues), the non-competitive awards I won that were selected by fellow competitors, etc.

/r/ApplyingToCollege Thread