How to make you college application stand out？
As more and more colleges drop the SAT and ACT from their application requirements, it has become apparent that the way to make your college application stand out from the competition is to present yourself as goal-oriented and purpose-driven. The easiest way to accomplish this is through a unique extracurricular resume.
A common misconception among students and parents alike is that the more activities a student can participate in the better. The reality couldn’t be further from the truth. Take for example a student that participates in the debate team, science club, photography club, and Model UN. Although he himself might be proud of his accomplishments, what an admissions officer sees is a student who is purposeless and hasn’t dedicated himself to a goal; choosing instead to follow his classmates and join clubs just to fill up space in his college application.
Take, on the other hand, a student who only participates in one club: the science club. She has been president of the club for three years because of her passion for molecular biology. She has always wanted to be a biomedical engineer, which is why starting from her freshman year she has interned at a biomedical lab in the city totaling more than 1000 hours of service over four years. Unrelated to her schoolwork, she also maintains a blog where she writes about her most recent research and has even attended a national biology conference where she has helped present findings from the lab she interned at. Even though she only participated in one extracurricular her entire high school career, this student is a thousand times more likely to stand out to a college as an outstanding student who is purpose-driven and goal-oriented; someone who is likely to succeed in the future, which is exactly what a college is looking for.
It is better for a student to find one thing they are passionate about and dedicate most of their time to it than to participate in a myriad of activities that everyone else is doing.
