IntermediatePROBLEM_SOLVING
Walk me through a situation where you identified an opportunity to improve something in your school or community (for example an event, process, or club activity) and took initiative to change it. How did you analyze the problem, who did you involve, and what was the outcome?
Other
General

Sample Answer

In my junior year, I noticed our community food drive looked successful on paper but wasn’t actually matching what the food bank needed. We collected a lot of random items, and volunteers spent hours sorting and discarding expired food. I asked the coordinator for last year’s data and saw that roughly 30% of donations weren’t usable. I met with the food bank manager and got a list of their top 15 needed items, then pulled in two classmates from student council and the social media club. We rebranded the event as a “needs-based drive,” created simple graphics, and added a QR code linking to the exact list. We also set up labeled bins so people could self-sort. Turnout stayed about the same in headcount, but usable donations increased by 55%, and sorting time dropped from two days to about five hours. The food bank asked to reuse our materials for other schools.

Keywords

Spotted a hidden inefficiency in a seemingly successful eventUsed data and stakeholder input (food bank, coordinator) to define the problemLed a small cross-functional student team to redesign the processDelivered measurable impact: +55% usable donations, major time savings
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