As promised, we're going to dive right into the application file today! If you missed the previous 3 postings, I suggest that you go read them first and then come back to this one to make sure you are up to speed! In my next few postings, we will read through an application file together... so, without further ado, let's get started!

Obviously, we are going to take a close look at the Common Application itself, which gives us the basic biographical information on our applicant. I always take a close look at the Extracurricular Activities section at the bottom of page 3, and our applicant example, "Sarah Student" has been involved in a number of different areas: she is a two-sport varsity athlete and captain, she has participated in a number of community service projects, and she is an Executive Board member of her Student Council. One thing that I really like about Sarah is that she followed the instructions on the application; she has filled out this extracurricular section (as the Common Application instructions say to do, in bold letters) even though she has attached a separate activity sheet/resume. Thanks, Sarah, for following instructions! That gets some points in my book!

When we are looking at extracurricular involvement, please understand that we are not looking for a laundry list of every activity that a student has been involved with since kindergarten. We're not looking for "joiners" -- students who were not involved in any clubs/organizations freshman and sophomore years but joined 10 different clubs as a junior because "it looks good on college applications." What we would much rather see is dedication and commitment to activities, rather than signing up for a bunch of groups but not really being involved in any of them. So if you have not yet applied to PC, please don't feel like you have to fill up every activity line available on the Common App... If you have 3 activities that you have been committed to, taken on leadership roles in, want to continue to be involved with in college... that means much more than the aforementioned long lists of clubs with little true involvement. One other note: sometimes, students are very involved with things outside of their high schools-- many students have after-school jobs, volunteer at their churches, or have to take care of younger siblings until their parents get home from work. Make sure to include all of these "out-of school" activities on your application as well-- they are also very important for us to know about! We certainly have a lot of respect for students who do have part-time jobs during the school year, and also understand that having a job or babysitting younger siblings often limits the time a student can be involved in high school activities. So let us know what you are doing outside of the classroom!!

Tomorrow, we'll continue to read through an application, and talk about some of the other pieces of the application we are looking at. See you then!