Transcend Your Potential
As college application season ramps up, you’ve probably noticed a lot of activity around your guidance counselor’s office. Eventually, you’ll need to get in there, too. Making sure you get your turn is all about being assertive, says Craig Meister, admissions expert and founder of AdmissionsIntel.com.
“To make the most of a guidance office, high school students do need to step up and take responsibility for their future,” he says.
Today we are sharing a fun little exercise aimed at helping give a little perspective to those in the throes of college application essay writing. Students should take this as an opportunity to assess if they have paced themselves and structured their essays correctly.
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Examine the three key segments of three different drafts of the same college essay. As you read through the excerpts of the Good, Bad, and Ugly drafts, ask yourself why the examples in question are Good, Bad, or Ugly. Some reasons are obvious, some are not. Try to fill in the “…” of each section to actually complete the Good, Bad, and Ugly essays.
The vast majority of good college essays follow the same format. You still have control over the topic of the essay, but why reinvent the wheel if the most successful essay format already exists? Before you ever write an essay, really think about the question. Don’t just start writing. Make sure you answer the question fully by the end of the essay and have done so in a grammatically correct, structurally sound, and entertaining manner. Once you start writing, your essay should include:
The Introductory Paragraph
You don’t want to answer the question here. It would be too soon. Rather, you want to launch into your story full force. Weak essays simply repeat the question. Strong essays take control of the question by answering it, but without being hemmed in by dry, repetitive language. By the end of this paragraph you want to have a powerful thesis.
Ex Question: Describe a meaningful experience in your life.
Good: August 12, 2005 started out like any other day for me as I prepared for my duties as a camp counselor for disadvantaged city youth…It was the last time I would enter that coffee shop as a child because in the next two minutes I would learned the hard lessons of an adult.
Bad: The most meaningful experience in my life to date was when I crashed through the window at…Clearly someone had to do something, and I decided it had to be me.
Ugly: I have had many meaningful experiences in my life….Crashing through the window made me realize my past mistakes.
The Body
This is where you go in-depth and tell the riveting, meaningful story. Always employ the rule of “Show, don’t tell,” so you won’t create an essay that is too bland. You want to include only important details and describe them well. The body is the one to three paragraph section of the essay where you serve the meat – but make sure it’s lean beef. This is also the fly-over territory where it’s easiest to miss errors. Proof-read!
Ex. Describe a meaningful experience in your life.
Good: As I looked up at the menu, I noticed a tall man enter the shop out of the corner of my eye…By time lunch had arrived I had already been questioned by police, been on the local news, and interviewed by the third largest newspaper in the country. Yet, despite all of the excitement, I could only think about how much I wanted to be with my campers.
Bad: I hit the man over the head with the six-pack of iced coffee that the punk-rocker had just moments before placed on the counter (she was now unconscious by the bookstand)…The second reporter was even more blunt, “How does it feel to know you stood up to the Skokie Slayer?” I didn’t know what to say.
Ugly: This clearly effected me greatly…When I laid down the night before I never thought this is how I would be spending the morning.
The Conclusion
Tie it up in a nice little bow and make sure you have shown some sort of progression from the start of the essay to the end. This is the place it’s best to draw your own conclusions that go beyond, yet still support the thesis you posited at the end of your introduction. Bad essays have their thesis at the end!
Ex. Describe a meaningful experience in your life.
Good: Notwithstanding my prior derision at my “ordinary” summer job, I had learned there were far more important things in life than the exotic nature of summer employment…Standing up for right over wrong, showing courage in the face of adversity, and always looking out for those who can’t defend themselves are nice ideas, but it’s rare that we are actually asked to put them into practice. On that August day, I was proud to know that I not only knew the right thing to do, but that I actually did it.
Bad: I longed to be back at my regular routine helping children learn to play baseball… When school started again in September, nobody had such an amazing story of summer exploits and I realized that it never would have happened if I had not done the right thing – not just on August 12, but in May by taking the job at the camp in the first place.
Ugly: If I had had the chance to go to Argentina to act as a summer analyst or the opportunity to go to Costa Rica to rebuild the hurricane ravaged countryside, I never would have had this happen to me…I am thankful that this happened to me and I now, more than ever, believe in fate.
This morning I was listening to the radio and heard a segment about a new museum that just opened in Sweden. The Museum of Failure. Brilliant! There are all kinds of cool failed ideas like Google Glass and the Apple (fig) Newton. I could add a few others…olestra (that oil alternative that has the unpleasant side effect of violent diarrhea) or maybe these hoverboards that explode into flames (I have two in my garage). The point is, in order to succeed one has to fail first. The problem is, everyone likes to say that, but find me the parent who is happy to have their child get an F in Algebra. Not happening.
So how can we allow our kids to fail (and learn) without screwing up their chances for college admission? You don’t want to fail an AP class, or any class for that matter; yet, there are plenty of other opportunities for failure, and you should make them available to your kids ASAP. Here’s how.
1. Start early. Let your child NOT make the team. Let them lose the race, the game, the contest. Let them flub up the recital (especially if they didn’t practice). Give them lots and lots of opportunities to try, fail, and then try again. Penelope Trunk writes about the importance of practice in an article in Business Insider, and we all know that “practice makes perfect,” but how many of us really force that issue?
2. In school, encourage plenty of “low stakes testing.” These aren’t those God awful state assessments. Low stakes testing (the best way to prepare for the SAT by the way) consists of frequent, short, low stress quizzes that help to decrease test anxiety due to their frequency and the fact that they DO NOT COUNT for much. They are LOW STAKES. Sure, your kids may fail a bunch of them, and then they start to figure out that the world isn’t ending, and they figure out how to best learn the material (not by cramming the night before) and after a bunch of failures they start to PASS the tests. Imagine that.
3. As a child gets older, he or she is willing to take intellectual risks because he or she knows that A) the world won’t end with failure and B) that failure leads to new ideas and eventual success. Once a young adult, he or she will learn to collaborate and look at – and deal with – problems in different ways.
I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Failure is good. Just ask Thomas Edison, or just about any theoretical physicist, or any of those folk who discovered a cure for one disease because the one they were working on didn’t cure the original disease.
And read one of Wendy Mogel’s books. Start with The Blessing of the Skinned Knee. It will go over great at cocktail parties when you are trying to explain to people why it is okay that your little Charlie was just cut from the travel soccer team (that’s fine, soccer is overrated).
NACAC (National Association for College Admission Counseling) had its annual conference in Boston this September, and it was chock full of educational sessions, networking opportunities, speeches by respected thought leaders, and four full days of morning, afternoon, and evening receptions. While it’s always nice to get together in one place a group of people who work in one industry, there are also drawbacks to attempting such a feat (NACAC has over 15,000 individual, institutional, and organizational members from around the world). Below is a summary of the top eight things I, one of the thousands of attendees, took away from NACAC 2017.
8. It’s great to get to know colleagues from around the U.S. and around the world: I think the greatest strength of having a NACAC conference once a year is that it brings together people from all corners of the world who work in the same field. Getting to know individuals who do what I do but do so in a different time zone or different language certainly helps put things in perspective and contextualizes the work that we all do. We all enjoy unique benefits from performing this line of work and we all face unique challenges in our individual positions, organizations, or locations. I think coming together each year is an invaluable way in which to reflect on what unites us and learn from what differentiates us.
7. Boston is beautiful: Boston, especially in September, is a great place to be. Taking in the sights, the local colleges, and scenery was certainly rejuvenating as we head into another admissions cycle. Kudos to NACAC Conference organizers for picking Boston and thank you to Boston for rolling out the red carpet to so many of us. South Boston is unrecognizable from just a few years ago, and conference goers certainly must have left town realizing that far from being just an amazing college town, Boston is a city on the move.
6. I need to do more cardio training and leg workouts: The convention center was so big and the conference and its satellite receptions covered so much physical territory in Boston that I am suffering from shin splints. Being a college counselor is clearly dangerous for one’s health, as sitting in front of a computer and meeting with families all day does not provide enough time for flexing ones muscles. I feel like I did more walking in Boston than I did during a recent trip to Disney World, and that’s saying a lot. In all seriousness, I can’t imagine how hard this was on many counselors who are severely out of shape and who tried to squeeze in as many sessions and events as possible during this conference. I’m no gym rat, but I’m also not in bad shape; yet, even I had a hard time traversing this conference on foot. I hope the organizers think long and hard about how they can create a more compact conference in the future. Maybe it’s time for more virtual elements? Or fewer and higher quality breakout sessions so there is more of a common experience for all participants at the end of the conference. At the very least, I need to take more breaks during every work day in order to stretch, walk, go up and down the stairs, and generally work out so that I won’t be limping during the waning hours of NACAC 2018 in Salt Lake City.
5. Resources seem misaligned: For all the backslapping and glad-handing taking place in Boston this week, what is abundantly clear is that students are not at the center of the college admissions industry. Rather, the people who run it are: the enrollment deans, the admissions officers, the college counselors, and the vendors there to grease the skids. If students were at the center of the process, so many dollars would not be spent once each year on various groups of adults wining and dining other groups of adults. While I love my new University of Texas Austin socks, I can’t help but think that the money spent to produce them would have been better served back in Austin reducing student-professor ratios or increasing student financial aid offers. Clemson can spend thousands of dollars on a glitzy reception for conference goers each September, but couldn’t Clemson get higher quality and more diverse applicants by instead spending less on desserts and spending more on plane tickets for its admissions officers to travel out to the furthest reaches of the the U.S. and world like so many other peer institutions do? Colleges and vendors in particular need to lead on returning students to the center of this process and that means less $tyle and more substance.
4. Many speakers weren’t very impressive: Considering this is the one big shot each year to get so many admissions and college counseling leaders together, I was struck by just how little new information I learned. Much of what I sat through in a session or was told by an admissions officer during the college counselors’ fair was information I’ve known for quite a while. The issue is compounded when speakers don’t speak very well or don’t even seem to realize that the information they are sharing is pretty stale stuff. As usual, I was most impressed by many of the senior admissions deans and officers and least impressed by those in their twenties who, with all due respect, give many of these institutions a bad name. Maybe send the rookies to the regional conferences to get their sea legs before inviting them to majors? With that said, there were some exceptional newbies, but they were indeed the exceptions. Also, just because one is a keynote speaker does not make one a good speaker. I also prefer keynote speakers who challenge the audience to think differently than they usually do. The keynote speaker at NACAC 2017 was preaching to the choir. The vendors as usual were particularly a mixed bag. Many seemed to be right out of a boiler room. Others seemed simply bored.
3. The Common App keeps finding new ways to disappoint: What happens when a group of poor planners decide to invite all conference attendees to their company’s reception? Food runs out only an hour in, leaving a lot of folks crammed into a damp tent together drinking and yelling at the person next to them just to be heard. It’s disturbing to know that the ‘brains’ behind the application used by over 700 colleges and universities can’t even successfully throw an average party. Experiencing the Common App’s 2017 NACAC reception explains why and how an application that was once a true revolutionary product (when designed by the innovative and down-to-Earth team now running the Universal College App) now seems past its sell-by date. No organization or company can expect continued success when it’s running on fumes and depends most of all on its past successes/reputation. Bring in new and unimaginative people and you get relatively uninspired output on all that they touch.
2. Counselors need to stop complaining about Hobsons/Naviance/RepVisits: It seems like every day on counselor forums and in conversations by phone and email high school counselors constantly complain about Hobsons, the company that owns Naviance and RepVisits. The fact is that counselors’ jobs would be so much harder without Naviance and RepVisits. Hobsons’ booth at this year’s conference was manned by earnest and kind professionals who really helped a lot of us. I had a major problem that was time-sensitive that I never expected to get resolved, and it was resolved by a wonderful Hobsons rep in thirty minutes! That is impressive. Hobsons is not perfect, but it’s far closer to perfect than the inept image lots and lots of complaining counselors would paint for you in order to make you believe that Hobsons is a complete mess. With RepVisits integration, Naviance now efficiently and effectively accomplishes what I used to spend a good half of my job doing. This allows me to spend more time providing personalized guidance to students and parents. College counselors should be kissing the feet of each and every Hobsons rep they encounter. Show some gratitude. Thank you Hobsons!
1. The Big 10 reception was great: As much as I feel sort of skeazy for attending (and enjoying some of) these networking (supposedly informational) receptions at which colleges or organizations throw products, drinks, and/or food at attendees, I can’t help but admit, in a year of pretty weak and tasteless party planners, the brains behind the Big 10 reception did a bang up job. The food was awesome, the music and lighting were spot on (I have to believe Rutgers had a large hand in the Jersey Shore-vibe that came across as more fun than kitschy), and the give-aways were non-generic school-specific items that reflected the true personalities of these very fine medium and large institutions. Loved the dumplings and guacamole. Props.
Next year in Salt Lake!
Is it difficult for college admission officers to tell when a student has not written his own application essay?
No, it often isn’t difficult at all. Admission officers read thousands of college essays, year after year. It’s easy for them to tell the difference between a seventeen-year old voice and a forty-something one; a middle-aged dad with writing finesse sounds like a middle-aged dad with writing finesse. Natural phrasing and word choice are generation-specific and difficult to disguise. Even subtle differences will stand out to seasoned readers. And these differences are apparent even when they are only a few insertions here and there throughout an otherwise student-written piece. Suspicious readers, whether they are sure about subterfuge or not, will certainly be disposed to scrutinize the rest of the application more diligently or to add a comment to the student’s file.
In addition, remember that an application reader has a student’s grades from English classes in hand, as well as SAT or ACT scores; and/or writing samples from supplemental essays. There may also be a letter of recommendation from the student’s eleventh grade English teacher — a letter that will specifically address the student’s aptitudes and abilities. (Some teachers even provide a short sample of the student’s work.)
Furthermore, parents sometimes forget to conceal what they are doing, or simply don’t realize how obvious they are. For example, during their turn at impersonating Junior, we slips in for I, and me becomes us, as in: “We were so worried when I was in the emergency room; the doctor told us I was lucky we came in immediately.” There also tend to be notable references to what Mom or Dad did, thought or said — “Dad breathed a sigh of relief” or “My Mom was very anxious.” Spell check won’t catch those types of errors for you.
Besides being perceptible to others, when you take over you may as well be saying he can’t do it without your help. What’s more, a parent’s product stands a higher chance of being superficial, pedantic and boring. It may be grammatically correct, but a boring essay adds nothing to the application. It is, therefore, a wasted opportunity to enhance the student’s admission possibilities.
It’s also a wasted opportunity when students do not set aside some time before college digging deep in self-reflection. Taking this time to reflect helps students find structure in their life stories and meaning in the person they have become. The writing process can also help students articulate their interests and aspirations in this context of self-understanding — wonderful preparation for all those future internship and job interviews they’ll face. (Mom, Dad, you won’t be there for those!)
Working hard on and completing a thoughtful college essay can boost a student’s self-confidence and spark his excitement about starting college the next year. What more could parents want than for their college-bound teen to realize that he is his own best resource, ready to take on college and life as he transitions into adulthood? Do your seventeen-year old a favor and step aside… you may be surprised at what a genuine and heartfelt self-narrative junior will write.
One factor in college admissions that many students and their families sometimes overlook is the impact of demonstrating interest. Although the bigger state schools and top-tier colleges often do not track demonstrating interest, many colleges and universities are increasingly monitoring the engagement levels of prospective students.
Colleges are trying to protect their most important statistic called “yield.” A university’s yield is the percentage of students who attend the college out of the number who were admitted to the college. In other words, what are the chances that a student attends if given the opportunity? Colleges like to boast higher yield percentages for obvious reasons: it makes the school seem more desirable and elite. With more high school students than ever before applying to colleges, admissions offices need to distinguish between those students who actually want to attend their institution and those who are just applying as a back-up option. Regardless of how much you want to attend any given school, it’s in your best interest to make each and every college on your list believe that you are seriously considering them as a great option if admitted. And the truth is, you should only apply to colleges that meet your needs. Why apply to a college if you wouldn’t consider attending? If you do get into a college you have no interest in attending, you are potentially taking a seat away from another student who has that school on his or her dream list. Additionally, it creates difficulty for admissions offices when they cannot discern who has their institution high on the list. If colleges think you are likely to attend if granted admission, they may be more likely to admit you.
Anecdotally, I have seen top applicants with straight As and super high standardized test scores get deferred, waitlisted, or even rejected at colleges where they should have been accepted because these students didn’t show such ‘likely’ colleges their interest. Whereas, some of my “B” level students with reasonable but not stellar scores, have gained admissions to these same schools by periodically expressing their interest to these colleges. This is not particularly hard to do but it does add another step to the college admissions process. When a college receives an application from a student after having zero prior contact with that student, many admission officers will call such an applicant a “stealth applicant.” Many colleges are wary of admitting such students.
Demonstrating interest assists colleges in determining prospective students’ likelihood to attend, and it can take on many forms. The most obvious ways of demonstrating interest are visiting the school, signing in with admissions, and taking part in an information session and tour of the campus; however, there are so many other ways to demonstrate interest that you may not have even considered. Once you get your contact information (name and email) onto a college’s “prospective student” list, the school may send you links and pamphlets as a means of helping you learn more about it. Although it may be hard to imagine, some colleges are actually tracking if you open each email, if you click on the links they provide, and how long you spend on the site. Even little, seemingly insignificant actions such as taking time to read a college’s course catalog may count as demonstrating your interest.
Other ways you can demonstrate interest include reaching out to professors within your area of intended major at each school and meeting with them if you are able to visit campus. You can also email admissions counselors merely to express your interest in the school – but you certainly want to take great care not to overdo it or annoy admissions or other college departments and offices. Be as specific as possible regarding why you would like to attend that school. Your email will likely be filed under your name within the prospective students at the college, and by the time you actually apply to the college, your file can be filled with all kinds of demonstrated interest.
It is important to remember that demonstrating interest can help distinguish you from thousands of other applicants if done the right way. Informing colleges of your interest in attending can improve your chances in admission; therefore, do not underestimate the significance of demonstrating interest.
This is Part 2 of a two-part series. For Part 1, which details how the author found her extracurricular spark, click here
You have read my story, now it is time to create your own. Let’s figure out what you might be interested in – beyond video games, Facebook, ESPN, WhatsApp, Instagram, and/or Snapchat!
HOW TO GET STARTED?
1. Go with your gut. STOP listening to the chatter. STOP worrying about what “they” (your parents, friends, spin instructor) might think about what you want to do. If it interests YOU then it is okay.
2. Think about your current interests. Do you want to sustain them? Perhaps you are involved with scouting, or art, or music. Do you want to continue with those activities? It is fine if you do, but you need to really WANT to. Don’t stick with it just because it is easy or familiar. If you’ve been on swim team but hate every minute of it, then quit. If you have played the violin for five years and still aren’t very good – and you’ve given it a good effort – then quit. NOW is the time to quit and move on. Cut your losses. DO WHAT YOU LIKE.
3. Warning For Musicians Only: If your passion is music, and you dream of being a music major or attending a conservatory, you need to start researching that now. Many conservatories require competency in more than one instrument as well as proficiency in reading and composing. Do you homework and PRACTICE. I will write more about music in a later post.
4. Make your choice and jump in. You don’t have to become an expert, just give something a try. By “give it a try” I mean stick with it for at least three months. After that, if you aren’t having fun, try something else. No one is keeping track. Of course there are exceptions to every rule. If you choose to take up some super technical sport or difficult instrument, it may well take more than three months to start enjoying it, but you get my point.
WHEN TO GET STARTED?
1. SUMMER is a great time to explore your interests. There are all sorts of camps and workshops and programs geared towards getting teens excited about everything from medical research to writing the next great novel. Summer is also the time when employment opportunities abound, and don’t overlook those chances to volunteer. Colleges aren’t looking for students who take the summer off. Make good use of that time to learn more about yourself.
2. The next best time to try new things is at the beginning of the school year. Create a new you. Join a new club. START a new club. Get involved in a community project at a deep level. Let’s say that your school’s Key Club does one of thosse Rise Against Hunger programs where everyone gathers to package up thousands of meals. If that sort of helping activity is interesting to you, make a point of seeking out the organizers. Ask them how you can get more involved. Find out how to help organize this type of event or sign on with the organization itself. There are countless opportunities to help out on a deeper level in your community.
EXAMPLES
Maybe theatre is your thing, or dance, or music. Instead of just joining the band or trying out for the play, take a stab at stage managing, or lighting, or sound. Maybe you want to write or direct or choreograph? You will be shocked at how welcoming and encouraging teachers and community members will be when you propose your ideas. Most will jump at the chance to help you. Besides, what’s the worst thing that can happen? That they say no. You will be no worse off than you were when you started! If someone turns you down (and they will), simply thank them for their time and move on. Don’t hold grudges or burn bridges though, because in all likelihood the reason for them turning you down had nothing to do with YOU, and they may be able to help you in the future.
Maybe sports are more your thing, and you are involved at the varsity or club level. First of all, read my blog post on athletics. Then if you are STILL involved at the varsity or club level, find a way to double dip. In other words, since you are already at the pool or gym or wherever, find a way to further your interest or passion in the sport beyond your training. Maybe you could help coach younger kids? If you are interested in pre-med perhaps you could shadow the athletic trainer or help him or her organize his or her space or maintain the weight room? Maybe you could learn more about exercise science or nutrition? If you are interested in training and/or nutrition, try to expand your interests so that they are not totally self centered. Explaining how you got yourself to 14% body fat will not make you jump off the page, but showing how you developed an eating plan that helped the team lose fat and gain muscle mass will get people talking.
These are just two suggestions. Choose one or two things that you’d like to explore (or keep exploring) and go and and DO IT. If you don’t get to sign up at the start of the year, that doesn’t mean you need to sit it out. Most clubs and community organizations welcome new members at any time. That first step is the hardest. Once you try one activity it makes it easier to join the next one. Just take that first step. You’ll be glad you did and it will help you get noticed.
Vanderbilt University allows resumes on both the Common App and the Coalition application.
High school students who invest time creating résumés may be handsomely rewarded in the college application process. Of 689 Common Application member colleges and universities that are “live” as of this writing, at least 224 — or about one-third — have made specific provisions for or even require the submission of this handy document.
This hasn’t always been the case. In fact, there remains a lingering controversy over the appropriateness of asking students to develop and maintain résumés throughout high school. And many colleges are very deliberate about not including them as part of their applications.
In her blog on college admissions at the University of Virginia, Jeanine Lalonde makes a point of repeating every year, “The Common App has a resume upload function and lets each school decide whether they want to use it. We are one of the schools that turned that function off. We prefer the Common App activity section to the various ways people choose to present their activities on resumes.”
But many college advisers and lots of colleges very much disagree.
“Almost as soon as I start guiding a student through college planning, I learn about the student’s interests and hobbies and discuss the importance of extracurricular commitment in and out of school – both for college admission and life enrichment. That naturally leads to an analysis of student engagement and the creation and continual updating of a résumé,” said Judi Robinovitz, a Certified Educational Planner in Palm Beach and Broward counties, Florida. “The résumé becomes far more than a list of activities. Rather, it highlights a student’s accomplishments about what she has done, why, how, and, most especially, how these actions have impacted lives (hers and others’).”
Robinovitz adds, “Here’s an important secret: when you share a thoughtfully prepared and detailed résumé with anyone who will write a recommendation, you’re likely to get a stronger and more anecdotal piece of writing that supports your application. Plus, through résumé creation now, we lay critical groundwork for undergraduate summer job and internship applications – and ultimately, for graduate school and vocational opportunities.”
In other words, a résumé represents an opportunity to collect, keep track of and reflect on accomplishments. And it’s likely to be a document the student will have to maintain, using different formats and styles, through college and beyond.
Most school-based and independent college counselors agree there’s no reason to include a résumé with a college application if it totally duplicates information contained in other parts of the application, unless of course, the school specifically asks for one. And plenty of colleges outside of the Common App system do, such as Georgetown University, Virginia Tech, MIT and the University of Texas at Austin.
For students using the Common Application, basic extracurricular-related information may be presented in the Activities section, which provides space to describe involvement in ten activities. Within each activity, the Position/Leadership blank allows 50 characters to give a solid indication of your position and the name of the organization in which you participate. A second box allows 150 characters to provide insight into what you’ve done and any distinctions you earned.
The Coalition provides space for extracurricular activities in the Profile section of the application. Students may enter up to eight activities and are asked to specify “the two primary activities that have taken up most of your extracurricular time during high school.” For each activity, the student is allowed 64 characters for the activity name (Cashier, Wegmans Grocery Store, Fairfax VA), as well as 255 characters for “one brief sentence describing the primary function of this activity” and an additional 255 characters to “[L]ist any positions/honors/awards received in this activity, if any.”
Students using the Universal College Application (UCA) may enter up to seven “Extracurriculars, Personal and Volunteer Experience[s]” and up to five employers or job-related activities. While the characters allowed are more limited (35 for extracurricular and 32 for jobs), students are encouraged to provide more details in the Additional Information section.
But for some students, these activities sections are still limiting and don’t provide enough of an opportunity to showcase specific accomplishments or direct attention to relevant online content. In this case, the applicant has a couple of options.
First, check member questions for additional opportunities to provide details about extracurricular activities. This is where some Common App members have made provisions for an upload of a fully-formatted résumé. These include:
Another option is to see if the college offers an alternate application that allows for résumé uploads. For example, the UCA provides for fully-formatted résumés by allowing PDFs to be uploaded in the Additional Information section of the application. Before going forward with this plan, however, it’s wise to check with the college first to see if they’d like a copy of your résumé as part of your application for admission. They may not!
A résumé can be a very powerful document for pushing your college candidacy forward. It can serve to color between the lines or provide extra detail beyond what may be crammed into a standardized application form.
If given the opportunity, use it. But make sure it reflects well on you and contains accurate and up-to-date information.
* This school also made provisions for résumé upload on the Coalition Application.
** This school does not specifically provide for résumé upload on the Coalition Application.
Pepperdine University
For nearly a decade, the Universal College Application (UCA) has offered students the opportunity to include on their applications a “live” link or URL to online content such as YouTube, LinkedIn, personal websites, blogs, etc. In this regard, the UCA was way ahead of the competition, offering an option that both colleges and students seemed to want. Despite repeated calls to include a similar field on their application, the Common App opted to strengthen partnerships with outside vendors like SlideRoom (frequently charging applicants a separate fee) and resisted signs that colleges were increasingly transitioning to inclusion of digital credentials as part of the admissions process.
With the debut of the Coalition platform, the idea of making digital media available as part of the college application became more institutionalized. Videos, audio presentations and pictures can be easily uploaded to the Student Locker and transferred to applications for colleges requesting them. And most Coalition colleges opted to also use the upload function for the personal statement—something the Common App dropped a couple of years ago in favor unwieldy “text boxes,” which definitely limit an applicant’s ability to control format, embed live links and use different characters or pictures as part of their essays.
As the Coalition built on a precedent established by the UCA and opened students to the possibility of introducing colleges to their digital sides, the Common App responded by creating a relationship with ZeeMee, originally an online resume-building site high on visuals and low on written content. In the spring of 2016, the Common App introduced the new partnership with an “infomercial” at their annual conference and offered colleges the opportunity to have a field dedicated to ZeeMee included in their “member questions.” A number of colleges accepted the offer, some by stridently advertising for and recruiting students to the ZeeMee platform. Others were moderate in their requests and still fewer (one or two) suggested that students could include a link to ZeeMee or other online media if they chose.
But the times are changing. Without any promotion or advertisement from the Common App, many member colleges adopted the more “generic” URL field in their 2017-18 applications and are using this opportunity to encourage students to provide links to any site—not just ZeeMee. In fact at least 45, or about six percent of Common App members with live applications at this point, intentionally give students a wider opportunity to provide a link to a website of their choosing.
For the record, an additional 125 Common App members (as of this writing) appear to limit their requests to or provide dedicated fields for ZeeMee URLs—some with very strong marketing language.
But this welcome application development seems to have largely gone unnoticed. Perhaps it would be even more welcome if the link were “live” and a reader could click on the URL and go directly to the site—an opportunity the UCA has offered students and admissions readers for close to ten years! Unfortunately, the current state of Common App technology apparently requires readers to copy and paste the URL into an internet browser to access content. Nevertheless, the inclusion of a more general question in the bank of member questions is an acknowledgment of the value of this information to the admissions process.
Here is a sample of Common App members electing to move away from promoting a single site to opening their application to the inclusion of any URL:
Franklin and Marshall, Hamilton and the University of Mary Washington make similar requests on the Coalition application.
And while the URL requests are fairly generic and don’t steer applicants in any particular direction, the award for best wording by a Common App member goes to the University of Mary Washington:
“Some applicants maintain an electronic profile (such as ZeeMee) that exhibits talents, creativity or other information to share with the Admissions Committee. If you maintain such a site, and would like the Admissions Committee to view it, please enter the URL here.”
The cleverest college award goes to SUNY Purchase, which gets around the deficiency in Common App technology by instructing applicants to be creative about uploading a document containing a link:
“For video submissions, post your video to YouTube or Vimeo and submit a document here with the URL link to the video.”
Note: For the nearly one-third of Common App members providing for submission of fully-formatted résumés, you can include URLs on those documents, upload them as PDFs and assume the links will be conveyed as live, thereby providing direct access to any online content you wish readers to see. Click here for more information on colleges that welcome your résumé.
I often write about developing your interests or igniting the spark. For some of you this may be all you need to start down that rosy path to passion, but for others, all that talk of interest and discovery might just be feeding your frustration.
“I have no interests,” you might be saying.
“My child just wants to lie on the couch and play video games 24/7,” you could be thinking.
I feel your pain. I too, have a more than one child who would love nothing more than to rot his brain in the supine position for the rest of his days. We won’t go there right now, but let me tell you how I discovered my own interests and passions back in the days of yore.
Every person has a different spark.
When I was eleven, I loved horses. This is a typical girl thing, right? Every Christmas I placed the word PONY first and foremost on my Christmas list. I begged for riding lessons, I had a collection of Breyer horses complete with barn and tack room. The summer after fifth grade my mother signed me up for summer camp at the Pony Palace Riding Club, which would involve a week of 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. riding and horsey-ness.
Two weeks before pony amp, I developed appendicitis. Post-surgery I was forbidden from any rigorous exercise for six weeks. SIX WEEKS. Luckily the Pony Palace Riding Club owner was a shrewd as I was desperate and she agreed that I could perform “light barn chores” instead of the more vigorous riding elements of the camp. I spent five days mucking stalls, bathing and grooming horses, cleaning tack, and measuring out feed. I saddled everyone up at the beginning of the day and put everything away at the end. I learned more about what goes into caring for horses – and what comes out of them – than I ever could have by simply galloping around the ring, and I loved every second of it. I spent most of my middle school years mucking around (literally) at that barn; I earned my riding lessons and hauled more manure than I care to remember, but just being around those animals was enough for me.
Fast forward to my high school years. Was I an equestrienne? No. Did I own a horse? No. Was this going to be my life’s work? No again. So what was the point? Working at that barn taught me all kinds of things. I was responsible for the well being of more than one relatively expensive living creature. The horses, and their owners, depended on me; and though I knew that I was never going to be a champion rider, I did know that I would always want to be around animals. The connections I forged at Pony Palace helped form my interest and passion for animals and the outdoors.
During my summer vacations in high school I worked as both a lifeguard and camp counselor. I started as a junior counselor after ninth grade and by graduation I worked my way up to being the Director of Aquatics. I needed to keep more than 500 campers from drowning each day, and I did not take that responsibility lightly.
That passion for the outdoors led me to try rowing as a sport. I went to a boarding school in New Hampshire that happened to have a large rowing program. When I tried it in the spring of my freshman year, I happened to be pretty good at it and was the only freshman (thanks to an upperclassmen getting suspended) to make the varsity second boat. For the next four years, rowing, even though it only took up a dozen weeks of my year, was my favorite thing about school. We did well as a team, we got some decent recognition, and I ended up at a Nationals after my junior year. That DID help me get noticed by colleges, but my passion for rowing also helped me make lifelong friendships. It taught me how to connect with my adult coaches who also helped me along the way.
Rowing is the ultimate sport in terms of teaching stick-to-itiveness. So it wasn’t so much about my talent as a rower, in fact I am very small for an oarsman, and at 5’5″ I wound up coxing in college. What rowing instilled in me was the knowledge that I could be passionate about something. Just like that summer at Pony Club, I could use my time rowing to remind myself that there are some pretty awesome moments in life, and you just have to keep trying for them.
As a senior at my school, you had the option of completing an Independent Study Project (ISP). I still loved animals so I came up with the crazy notion of doing my ISP at the Los Angeles Zoo as an intern zookeeper. I wrote my proposal and sent it off, never imagining that it would work out. Lo and behold, the folks at the zoo cooked up an amazing program in which I could work on all of the various animal “strings” and also take the volunteer docent course at the same time. It was my dream come true.
Long story longer, there isn’t any set formula for finding or pursuing what interests you. My path certainly was unpredictable and a little non conventional. Did I end up as a veterinarian or Olympic rower? Obviously not, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that I followed the things things that interested ME. Not my parents, not my friends, ME. The key to getting noticed is to discover and follow YOUR passions and interests.
If you are a parent: I am sure that you can think back on your journey to adulthood and come up with your own version of the road that led you to where you are now. We all take a series of steps – and missteps – as we shape our lives. What is important for your child (or you, if you are the student) is to discover what INTERESTS them. Let their interests lead the way. While you’re at it, let their talents lead the way as well. While there is much to be said to sticking with a project (or lessons, or whatever) there is NO point in forcing a child to continue in an activity for which they have no real talent or passion. There is no use in continuing with the swim team or flute lessons if every practice session is a battle. Let them move on. I realize that you may have invested a lot of money into that particular activity, but I urge you to cut your losses. If your child doesn’t love it by the end of middle school, let them find what they do love.
My own two daughters started off in elementary school with the violin and the cello. They did the whole Suzuki thing. They learned to read music (sort of). I forced them to practice. We went to recitals. I kept them at it through middle school, by which time one had discovered chorus and the other soccer and track. They loved their new activities. They were GOOD at their new activities. They both hated their respective stringed instruments. Despite protestations from both my husband and my mother in law (who had only recently purchased two rather expensive instruments), I allowed them to move on.
As it turned out, one went on earn a place in the All State Chorus on three different occasions, and today she sings with a local opera company and is a paid section leader in a local church choir. The other competed at the state level in her track event and was recruited by several DIII schools. Let students follow their own path. Allow students to ignite that spark that they all have inside of them.
I promise you it will all work out.
This is Part 1 of a two-part series. For Part 2, which includes specific actionable tips about how to start igniting your spark, please click here.
