How to Write the Describe an Activity Essay
Okay, so you’re staring at a college app and you see one of these prompts:
Georgetown: Briefly discuss the significance to you of the school or summer activity in which you have been most involved.
Harvard: Briefly describe any of your extracurricular activities, employment experience, travel, or family responsibilities that have shaped who you are.
Cornell: Please elaborate on an experience where you were able to have a meaningful impact on people, a community, and/or an environment of importance to you.
CalTech: Tell us about a STEM-related experience from the last few years and share how and why it inspired your curiosity.
Seems simple enough, right? They’re asking you to, well… describe an activity you did. Easy A, done and dusted.
Not so fast.
This one seems straightforward, but there’s a little trap baked into it. That trap? Thinking this is about the activity itself. Spoiler: it’s not. It’s about you. Always, always you.
Remember, colleges are using these essays to learn more about you. Colleges don’t actually care about the event or the project or the club on its own. They ask these questions to give regional admissions officers something to report back about your application, and they need to see positive character attributes in order to advocate for you. Can your response to this essay give your regional admissions officer something special to say about you in the committee meeting? Something that makes them remember your name when they’re staring down 6,000 applications?
That’s the goal.
Brainstorming Step 1: Choosing Your Activity
First, decide on an activity for 2 types of essays:
Intellectual Curiosity:
Example: Duke—Tell us about an intellectual experience in the past two years that you found absolutely fascinating.
Community Impact:
Example: UC’s PIQ—What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?
Sometimes a school will let you choose, though. For example, CMU asks this question: Consider your application as a whole. What do you personally want to emphasize about your application for the admission committee’s consideration? Highlight something that’s important to you or something you haven’t had a chance to share. Tell us, don’t show us (no websites please).
In general, you want to think about your most notable accomplishments. Select activities that made you proud, that you put a lot of effort into, and that garnered recognition.
Brainstorming Step 2: Ask the Big Questions
What Was the Impact?
It’s not enough to say what you did. You need to show your role, your initiative, and your impact. Were you the president? The founder? The one who stayed up until 2 a.m. doing all the behind-the-scenes stuff? Own it.
More than what the activity was, what did you do? That’s the important thing to focus on. What was your main role? It’s probably a good idea to choose something you were very active in; ideally, you held a leadership role within this activity. If you participated in a self-directed project, now is the time to talk about it.
This is the moment to brag—tastefully, but truthfully.
Why This Activity?
Don’t assume they know why this activity is so important to you. You care about unhoused people. Great. Why? That seems obvious to you, but to an admissions reader who doesn’t know you, you’ve got to make it personal. What drew you to this work? What moment or story made this issue hit home?
You need to explain why you got involved in the first place. The answer might sound obvious, but there are plenty of students who opted for other volunteer initiatives. Why was this cause important to you?
What Did You Learn?
Time for some good ol’ introspection. What surprised you? What was harder than you expected? Did your perspective shift? What did you learn about yourself, or the people around you?
You need to reflect on this activity. Show them what you learned from it and dig deep: what expectations did you go in with? What did you learn about yourself? About your community? The more you can demonstrate thoughtfulness, the more they will believe you actually cared about this activity and didn’t just take on this challenge because you thought it might look good on a college application.
Essay Examples
It’s easier to see the different approaches to these essays once you’ve read several examples. Let’s look at some essays that worked and break down what made them so impactful.
Example #1
Prompt (UC App PIQ): What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?
In first grade, when my teacher would sit us down on the carpet for Read Aloud, I would sit hidden in the back near the little bookshelf, sneakily browsing the chapter books. From my parents, who had both moved to the US for graduate school, I’ve learned to value knowledge and the opportunities that education offers.
I saw the HeadStart tutoring program as a chance to give back to my community and open up more doors for younger students from all different backgrounds. I made lesson plans, emailed parents, and worked with a couple of other tutors to teach a class for two consecutive summers. Though I had one student who was consistently vocal and enthusiastic, the relative silence of the others reminded me of how hard remote learning was during the pandemic. Many teachers have discussed their decisions to slow down their curriculum and increase curves on tests after the pandemic as their students struggled to keep up. I wanted to address this issue myself by helping middle school students get excited about learning and overcome their fear of failure, especially those who can’t afford to pay for a class or individual tutor.
At a well-funded science and technology school, I’ve seen how much people can accomplish with the right support. Each year, senior research projects range from modeling lattice quantum chromodynamics to exploring bioimaging applications of carbon quantum dots. But, I’ve also felt the common struggle to stay afloat in a demanding class. Ever since my 8th-grade math teacher asked me to help a student in Algebra 2, I’ve found peer tutoring to be a rewarding and effective way for me to support a large number of people in my community during the school year. I both tutor and match students with other peer tutors through the TJ Peer Tutoring program, which offers help in a variety of subjects at all levels.
I’ve strived to uplift as many people as I can by providing more convenient and affordable access to education because encouraging curiosity leads to future innovation and a stronger, more cohesive community.
Why it worked: Right from the jump, the topic here is going to be difficult to make impactful—tutoring is one of the most common forms of volunteering that students take on. However, this essay feels different. The introduction gives us a glimpse into the student’s worldview and why educational equity is so valuable to her. She’s also self-aware: she explains that her STEM magnet school offers her opportunities that other students do not have access to and attributes her success to these resources.
Example #2
Prompt (Boston University): Reflect on a social or community issue that deeply resonates with you. Why is it important to you, and how have you been involved in addressing or raising awareness about it?
Sarah claps as the final water balloon she threw explodes over the grass, colorful pieces of rubber sprinkling the lawn like confetti. After cleaning up, we head inside to start on a puzzle. My Sundays are spent here, at my local assisted-living home, helping residents maintain sensory and motor function while having some fun.
When Grace, the events director, asked if I could volunteer more often—she’d noticed a significant boost in morale since I’d joined—I happily agreed. “When should I come in?” I asked. “I can work around the other volunteers’ schedules.”
Grace looked confused. “You’re our only volunteer.” There were over 15 residents in the home—my Sunday shifts were not nearly sufficient enough to give each person the attention they needed.
This assisted-living home, like others in the area, allocated most of its limited funds towards financing staff and acquiring necessary supplies to maintain a baseline of care for the residents, leaving little room to focus on building an adequate volunteer program. Without enough volunteers, the staff was stretched thin, and residents didn’t receive the support and time they deserved.
To address the shortage, I started a volunteer chain through my chapter of the Youth Movement Against Alzheimer's, recruiting several members through social media advertising and presentations at various school clubs. Observing the high level of interest, I reached out to other assisted-living homes to expand our chain. We started at three locations, but have now expanded to five homes in multiple counties, with a team of 30+ members. While I take pride in our collective achievement, our efforts highlight the imperative of addressing labor disparities in the healthcare field. With recent shortages of EMTs and physicians (and predicted nurse shortages in the future), I plan to use my global health education to address systemic causes more broadly.
Why it worked: In context with this student’s application, this essay highlights a deeper understanding of their field of interest. This student applied for neuroscience and had demonstrated research in the field, shadowed a neuro-oncologist, and was involved in multiple other community service initiatives related to healthcare. This essay shows us that they not only were paying attention to larger systemic issues in the field, but they also took action to address one of these issues when given the opportunity. They recognize the need for collective action.
To show you how to adapt an essay for multiple schools, here’s another example from this same student:
Prompt (NYU): We are looking for peacemakers, changemakers, global citizens, boundary breakers, creatives and innovators – Choose one quote from the following and let us know why it inspires you; or share a short quote and person not on our list who inspires you, and include why.
Chosen Quote: “We’re used to people telling us there are no solutions, and then creating our own. So we did what we do best. We reached out to each other, and to our allies, and we mobilized across communities to make change, to benefit and include everyone in society.” Judith Heuman, 2022 NYU Commencement Address.
I believe that to make an impact, multiple pairs of hands are needed. Judith Heuman’s words, along with her activism for the disability community, resonate with my commitment to supporting individuals in need since I’ve seen firsthand the benefits of communal efforts to further support people with disabilities.
The past year, I’ve spent my Sundays at my local assisted living home, helping residents maintain sensory and motor function. Recently, I was pulled aside by Grace, the events director. She’d noticed a significant boost in morale since I had joined and asked if I could volunteer more often.
“Absolutely! I can work around the other volunteers’ schedules.”I offered.
Grace looked confused. “You’re our only volunteer.” The home had over 15 residents—my Sunday shifts were not nearly enough to give each person the attention they deserved.
To address the shortage, I started a volunteer chain through my chapter of the Youth Movement Against Alzheimer's, recruiting members through social media and information sessions at school clubs. Observing the high level of interest, I reached out to other assisted-living facilities, and we’ve now expanded to five homes, with a team of 30+ members.
Had I not mobilized my community to create change, my efforts to offer sustainable help to the assisted-living facility would have never seen the progress it did through the collective support from my peers. My method of activism is grounded in collaboration because it works: we create change when we remember the potential of the collective power we hold.
Why it worked: In this essay, she stresses her interest in mobilizing people for collective action. Important to note, though, is that she still points out the quantifiable impact of her work: five homes and over 30 volunteers. That’s not just getting more volunteers at the local assisted living facility she volunteers with—that’s encouraging multiple people to become involved.
Example #3
Prompt (Yale): Tell us about a topic or idea that excites you and is related to one or more academic areas you selected above. Why are you drawn to it? (200 words or fewer)
I found it fascinating that the difficult Vuelta Quebrada maneuver in the Flamenco dance draws inspiration from a folklore Rajasthani Indian dance. How could these two distinct cultural art forms, separated by thousands of miles of land, share such a connection?
I explored the historical trade routes between Spain and India to find the conduit for this artistic cross-pollination. Indeed, the presence of Mughal art and culture in Spain, introduced a variety of artistic expressions that likely blended with local Spanish customs.
At the Virginia Governor’s Academy, I learnt about Ribollita, a classic hearty Tuscan soup which reminded me of the Mulligatawny soup that my grandmother made back in India. How do two basic similar soups originate from very different cultural and culinary backgrounds?
I am absolutely fascinated by the historical interconnectedness of global cultures. Language itself is a dance of culture and history. Each step in a Flamenco dance, every word in a Spanish poem, is a clue in a larger puzzle. The joy of this pursuit lies not just in the answers, but in the questions that keep emerging. Exploring this history reminds me that human beings have always relied on one another for inspiration and innovation.
Why it worked: This essay takes an intellectual experience and shows us how history, to this student, informs their view of human relationships today. Because schools appreciate collaboration and exploration, it shows the school that this student understands why a diversity of perspectives is valuable. It also still shows the student’s intellectual curiosity and ability to explore ideas more deeply outside of a classroom setting.
Example #4
Prompt (Duke): Tell us about an intellectual experience in the past two years that you found absolutely fascinating.
This past summer, I spent one week at Princeton for its James Madison Program on the Principles of American Politics, looking to apply core American principles to a potential framework for future space policy. Coming from a liberal area and family, it was an initial shock to discover that the majority of students there, including the professors, leaned in the other direction. For example, while discussing the Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission court case, I was struck by how many of my peers justified the baker’s actions by freedom of speech—one student, Meredith, argued that baking itself was an act of expression, and should therefore not be restricted by the government. When the discussion was over, I went up to Meredith and asked with genuine curiosity if her opinion would be different if this were an interracial couple and Phillps, the baker, had refused to bake them a cake.
“But the difference is the religious aspect,” she said. “Phillips was abiding by his religious principles."
"So free speech is not a factor here,” I said. “It's about religious freedom.”
After a moment, she nodded and said, "That makes sense."
I was surprised. I had expected more pushback, but it seemed that my simple question had disarmed her and allowed for thoughtful civil discourse. It’s a lesson that I’ve since applied to any context where conflict may arise—if we come from a place of curiosity and mutual respect, we’re much more likely to find common ground. (248)
Why it worked: This student engaged deeply with a complex constitutional issue, and explored how foundational principles of American politics might apply to something futuristic—space policy. That’s not only intellectually interesting, it’s original. Duke also values open-mindedness and the ability to engage respectfully with differing perspectives. This student shows that they don’t just tolerate disagreement—they seek it out.
Final Thoughts
The “Describe an Activity” essay may seem simple on the surface, but it’s a golden opportunity to show colleges who you are beyond your resume. This is your chance to go beyond your resume and show the real human behind the application. Don’t waste it by listing accomplishments or rehashing your activities section. Instead, zoom in on a single moment and tell a personal story. Let us see why this activity mattered to you, how it changed you, or what you learned from it. Remember: the activity is just the vehicle—the destination is you. If an admissions officer walks away knowing something real, specific, and memorable about your values or personality, then you’ve done your job.
The best essays leave the reader thinking, “Wow, I’d love to have this person on campus.” Make it personal, make it honest, and don’t be afraid to show a little heart. That’s what sticks.
