"a program at a local nursing home" - Common App Short Answer

Elaborate on one of your extra-curricular activities in 150 words or less:The summer after my junior year, I started a program at a local nursing home dedicated to teaching the residents essential computer skills. With my help, residents reconnected with their families after several years with webcams, e-mail, and social networking sites. The program gave one woman the chance to look at her son's artwork for the first time.

I think the topic is good, but elaborate a bit more, as the prompt already states. You have up to 150 words to do that, use this space. Maybe describe in more detail the meeting with this woman you mentioned in your last sentence.

If you can cut out a few sentences and include a personal story, the short answer would be A LOT more powerful because the whole background of your EC has potential to be a powerful essay, so use that potential

Ha ha, awesome... this made me really happy when I read it. I bet they found a lot of old friends on Facebook!! :-) And Youtube is great, too, because it has videos from way back in history... we can see more of what was going on in 50's now than people could see THEN!

So... you did a great thing. Now, add some ideas about how you might like to continue this kind of work in college, and add a memorable thesis statement for the essay. It can be one long paragraph or two short paragraphs.

:-) thanks for doing this great service for those senior citizens. (I was probably one of them in another life.)