Common App - Activities and Hours Spent

[justkeepswimming]

Hmmmm... We are (once again) stumped.  So - in the activities section is asks for how many weeks spent and how many hours per week spent for each activity.

 

Many of dds activities aren't neatly divvied into hours per week slots.

 

Some activities totaled, say 200 hours of annual involvement  - but some of that was overnight activities (these are volunteer/activism sorts of things, not sports), conferences, etc. So it could be many, many hours one week involved with this group - and then nothing for the next several weeks except for perhaps a conference phone call of 1 hour. So - how does she fill this out?

 

If she fills in 4 hours a week, 52 weeks a year... that's around 208 hours, which is just about right. But... she wasn't technically INVOLVED 4 hours a week, 52 weeks per year, so it's not exactly correct. 10 hours a week, 20 weeks per year is closer to how the actual time is spent BUT she's technically INVOLVED 52 weeks per year... (with conference calls and short meetings), so we don't want it to sound like a "part-time" activity.

 

So. ???

 

The other one that's stumped us are things that she's been involved in for 4+ years, but the hours involved have drastically varied each year. She was in Activity A for four years. In 9th & 10th grade, she spent approximately 18-20 hours per week for 40 weeks per year. In 11th grade, she spent approximately 10 hours per week for 40 weeks per year, and in 12th grade, she's lucky to spend 2 hours per week. So, how the heck does she answer THAT question? We don't want to go with her senior hours, because that doesn't fully flesh out the MANY hours of involvement she's had with this particular activity... but answering 18-20 hours per week NOW, of course, isn't honest and isn't accurate (and they would see that she doesn't have that many hours in a day, of course).

 

[GoodGrief]

I think you just have to average it out.  The point of the weeks per year question is to determine whether the activity is seasonal (like participation in a school sport).  If it's something she does throughout the year, but in spurts, I'd just estimate the annual hours and divide by 52.  :-) If more specificity is needed, she could discuss it in an essay, perhaps, or one of those "additional information" sections.

[TeaTotaler]

Agreeing with Gr8lander, ds just averaged out the hours/week.  Of course, I haven't actually started to fill info into the Common App yet, but ds has a document with all the info listed.

[regentrude]

Average it. Nobody is going to look that closely - I take this more as wanting to know whether the student dabbled in an hour here and there or was seriously committed.

Anything that had a special important place can in his education be elaborated on in the school profile or counselor's letter, or he can choose it as an essay topic.

With an activity that took a major part of the student's time for three years and went on the back burner for senior year, I'd use the prior year's hours.