Common App Signature

How to eSign a document: how to sign an ed signature

hey guys are you applying to college and wondering ah how do I fill out the government application if so this video is for you what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna walk you through how to fill out the common application activity sections specifically as well as just the general kind of stuff and I'm also going to give you some tips on the biggest mistakes that students make when they fill out the activities section so stay tuned before we get too deep into things I want to remind everybody to subscribe to our channel by clicking subscribe and the other thing I want to encourage you to do if you're taking the AC T you're thinking about taking the acct check out the best AC t-- prep course at our website it's a video prep series with over 50 hours of awesome video prep content to get you super ready for the AC t so go check that out we also have lots more blogs and awesome content on both SAT and a CT at our website so definitely check those out without further ado let's get into things I'm here at the common application so after you create an ID you get here to this dashboard and we're gonna walk you through kind of how this works and the things that you have to worry about so the first thing that I'm going to show you guys on the common application is right here under profile I'm not gonna go through all this like personal information stuff but what I am gonna show you is kind of how it works which is once you've filled everything out in a particular section you're gonna get a little green check on the right-hand side which means that you've filled it all out and if you haven't filled it out that won't be there and you have to go into it and explain everything okay two things I want to quickly point out that you shouldn't overlook there's this little thing on scholarship information and you can tell them if you want to receive information from colleges about financial aid and scholarships and then there's also this idea of a fee waiver if you think you might qualify you can check this out and click on this and that's something to you can talk to our counselor about at school let's get a family this is just about your family it's basic stuff it shouldn't be that hard this is about your education you just fill this out it's all pretty darn self-explanatory other secondary schools if you didn't know what that means that's high schools so that's what secondary schools means so don't put like elementary schools don't put your middle school those no count colleges and universities if you've ever taken coursework at a college or university you're going to say how many and then there going to give you the ability to fill that in I think you can include if you want like summer courses if they were for credit so if you have any questions of whether this counts or not what I would do is talk to the people at the organization where you took your program and ask them if it's accredited with a college or university that's kind of the question you want to ask some summer programs are some summer programs aren't and even college now or like Community College stuff that would go here grades graduating class size current or most recent your courses so you just fill the stuff out if you don't know the answer to these questions talk to your guidance counselor at your school okay and then honors you're going to say have you received any honors so this is the first part I'm going to start to talk about where you can fit interesting stuff in with your activities here's the deal my role with the common application is you don't want to repeat unless you have to repeat so one of the first places that you can start to put in your activities is actually under honors you want to maximize how awesome you've seen and so in order to do that you don't want to be repeating yourself over and over again so you might even put something here like National Honor Society even though it's like an activity because it's kind of more of an honor do you get what I'm saying this could be also like honor roll right now when I do honors and this is just a general rule of thumb I always like to say start with a thing that's most impressive so if your first honor is that you were like a presidential scholar right because that's national and you put that one first because it's more impressive honor roll is gonna be less impressive because chances are as long as you had a 3.5 average you made the honor roll but my point is is try to put your most impressive honor first try to put your least impressive honor last and remember there are some things that you could finagle into honors that otherwise might be a dopey activity but it's also kind of an honor and so that's a way you can save some space in the activities section to pack more in okay so let's talk about community-based organizations so this is actually a spot where you can acknowledge that you had help from a community organization or a program with assistance in your application process that could be something like and there's these organizations do you see how they have a list of that could be something like the Boys and Girls Club that could be something like ah Quest bridge I know a lot of students work with Quest bridge that's probably one of the most common ones and then you can fill in like whoever your mentor is etc from that but I know a lot of students who are confused by this and they think they should put their private tutor or something or their aunt and like no don't do that that's silly so and then you go to future plans you can do your career interest and you can also do the highest degree you intend to earn I don't think schools are necessarily too caught up in what you think you want to do aspirationally but it does provide a little bit of focus especially if you're not claiming a major on your college application of any sort I will say and we'll talk about this in a little bit that there are some schools in which it is much more difficult to get into a certain major than another major and that might come into a part of your strategy when you're applying to schools so in terms of this I would say just be honest so let's jump to the activity section this is probably the section that most people screw up besides the essays when it comes to filling out the common application again I just really quickly wanted to hit on in your profile that piece of Education where you can look at a words because that's a place where you can create balance with your activities so I like to just show you guys that show you how you can use that okay so activities basic gist of activities activities tips number one don't type directly in boxes use a document and the reason to do that is that the interface is really finicky and like if you press back or you move your cursor the wrong direction it like deletes everything and it's super unnerving and it drives you nuts I just did it like four times and I felt like I wanted to smash my computer so be sure to not type directly into boxes use a document remember you have a hundred and fifty characters and if you don't know how to check for characters if you're in Microsoft Word you can go to tools and word count if you're in Google Docs there's also a word count feature that you can find I'm sure you can find it and then you also have fifty characters for the description okay number two maximize your words so shove things wherever you can okay if you run out there is additional information in the essay section that you can use okay number three tip number three is I want you guys to be consistent and what I mean by that is if you're saying flute right and then I put the organization that I played the flute in right then I'm gonna be consistent if I do it in the reverse order I'm gonna do it in the reverse order if I do actress costumer right flute piccolo player you get what I'm saying if I'm gonna use a slash here then I want to use a slash here are you with me people I want to be consistent okay same thing with this if I'm just listing stuff out if I'm going to use verbs I want to be consistent with tense so I usually recommend the past tense right don't flip the present tense okay so be consistent number four I want you guys to put the most important stuff first okay so that means more hours more attention more passion and more excellence whatever has more of all these things that's what you want to put first okay and then number five I usually say put low commitment stuff activities last those are usually things like non regular community service camps and leadership programs am i telling you not to put these on here absolutely not I know some of you saw my activities that colleges don't care about and you think you shouldn't put them on your application at all you should so that they don't care about them at all it's just that put the other things first because they show more commitment and put these little things last so not in regular community service things that are non-traditional maybe you help out at your mom's shop or something or maybe you teach private flute lessons to random kids I don't know so things that are non-traditional I also will usually put down toward the bottom and remember number six my tip number six is think outside the box but not too far okay and what I mean by that by thinking outside the box but not too far is it's totally cool if you have a legit an activity that doesn't fit into a normal activity sort of thing like let's say you are taking flight lessons and learning to fly planes that's freaking cool you should put it on your activities but does that mean that you should put down that you walk your own dog no walking your dog is like not an impressive activity and I don't really want to see it now sometimes I also have people who want to put that they like attend a religious organization if that's really important to you and you feel like you're involved and you feel like it's a community for you and you've accomplished something within that structure then feel free to put that down if it's just attending something like once a week I would definitely keep it toward the bottom unless you really don't have other activities and and it just is a matter of like how involved are you and how much of an impact have you made right or are you just a passive observer in that context so you can think outside the box but not too far outside the box and let's round this out with number seven what's my last tip is proofread one of the biggest mistakes the students make on the activity section of the common tab is that they don't proofread these they have a bunch of people give them input on their essays and they have no one read the activities the reason that you want to proofread is one if you're an international student a lot of the time and even if you're a domestic student a lot of the time activities don't translate and what I mean by that is that you cause something even if it's in English right you call some activity or school something and in America we don't call it that or we don't have that position or we don't have that Club I don't know what your superstar Club is you get what I'm saying I don't know what these things are and then the other thing too is make sure you give it to other people so they can read it people who don't go to your high school so that it's not a bunch of jargon and what I mean by jargon is a lot of high schools have particular ways of saying things they have particular clubs that are called particular things I may never have heard of your school's random Club so make sure that you say things in a way that we get what the heck you're talking about okay and then my final comment to you guys is always use the additional information if you can because this is an opportunity to add more in I've had people put in whole other essays if you have another awesome essay I've had people explain more activities whatever you want to do but you have this box you should use it this is your attempt to get into college you have a few extra words I recommend that most people use it if you have the time or you have the wherewithal and that's it I hope you guys like this video if you did please give it a thumbs up subscribe to our YouTube channel for more great awesome videos and check out all our other videos on college entrance I will see you guys next time at super tutor TV ciao for now