Anon_9 Posted September 17, 2018 Report Share Posted September 17, 2018 Is it bad if we have 9/31 entries on our ABS from high school? Each of the activities are 4 year commitments, but unfortunately, because I am applying as a third year student, a good chunk of my ABS includes high school activities. Is it better to exclude these and have less entries? Thanks in advance! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ace777 Posted March 18, 2019 Report Share Posted March 18, 2019 . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Instagrammar Posted March 18, 2019 Report Share Posted March 18, 2019 I had a few activities from high school and got 4 interviews. Nothing to be worried about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anon_9 Posted March 18, 2019 Author Report Share Posted March 18, 2019 2 minutes ago, 2019goals said: Yeah that may be frowned upon. You should do more activities in undergrad. Most undergrad students who are successful do not include anything from high school. Personally, I did not even have space for my high school activities... True true, yeah I just did that this cycle but will definitely be adding more undergrad entries if I have to reapply this upcoming cycle! Thank you!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anon_9 Posted March 18, 2019 Author Report Share Posted March 18, 2019 1 minute ago, Instagrammar said: I had a few activities from high school and got 4 interviews. Nothing to be worried about. That's amazing congratulations! And thanks! I think I will keep a few that I really loved and committed to for an extensive period of time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Instagrammar Posted March 18, 2019 Report Share Posted March 18, 2019 Just now, Anon_9 said: That's amazing congratulations! And thanks! I think I will keep a few that I really loved and committed to for an extensive period of time. My biggest piece of advice which was also echoed in a UofT admission blog video is that you want your references to be current, avoid high school reference letters. I had 10 high school entries through OMSAS (although ~3 were activities I continued into university). The rest were all long term university experiences ~4-5 years each or work related things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OwnerOfTheTARDIS Posted March 19, 2019 Report Share Posted March 19, 2019 If you have nothing more recent/better to fill the spots, I see no harm. Especially if you’re applying as a third year, you could be like 20? You just haven’t had as much time to acquire post high school activities compared to other applicants. I had several high school activities on both my third and fourth year applications and got interviewed 3rd year and accepted 4th year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m_jacob_45 Posted March 19, 2019 Report Share Posted March 19, 2019 I had a bunch of activities from high school and got 2 interviews. My advice is if you don’t put activities on your ABS, for all the adcoms know, you were sitting at home playing video games so you should essentially include everything unless it’s controversial in some way or a very small activity that could appear like padding such as volunteering somewhere for a day. If you are short on space, feel free not to include high school activities, but if you have room I would suggest including them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mohammad Posted March 20, 2019 Report Share Posted March 20, 2019 On 3/19/2019 at 9:54 AM, m_jacob_45 said: I had a bunch of activities from high school and got 2 interviews. My advice is if you don’t put activities on your ABS, for all the adcoms know, you were sitting at home playing video games so you should essentially include everything unless it’s controversial in some way or a very small activity that could appear like padding such as volunteering somewhere for a day. If you are short on space, feel free not to include high school activities, but if you have room I would suggest including them. What is wrong with playing video games? There's another thread talking about putting video games on the ABS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m_jacob_45 Posted March 20, 2019 Report Share Posted March 20, 2019 2 hours ago, mohammad said: What is wrong with playing video games? There's another thread talking about putting video games on the ABS. Nothing is wrong with it. Its just a leisure activity similar to watching TV for example that generally would not go on your application unless it’s similar to the context from the other thread (in which case I would consider it controversial since how it is received will depend on who is reviewing your application). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galaxsci Posted March 30, 2019 Report Share Posted March 30, 2019 I wouldn't worry about high school references as long as you stay in touch with the person. I had a high school reference letter and got three interviews/acceptances in 3rd year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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