The college admissions process today is incredibly competitive and every student wants to figure out the perfect combination of activities, skills, and grades that would guarantee them a spot at their dream schools. But the sad thing is, due to the sheer volume of applications and inherent bias in the admissions process, even students with seemingly perfect high school resumes can face rejections. Top colleges such as Ivy League schools receive thousands of applications a year, and a huge number of their applicants are students who are at the top of their respective classes, have spent years cultivating amazing extracurriculars, have great letters of recommendation, and so on. These colleges often have to decide between two equally impressive candidates with all the right achievements, and to make this decision, they need to know more about what makes each applicant unique. In this article, our experts reveal how you can advocate for yourself in a college application while staying true to who you are and your goals!
That’s why it is so important to have intrinsic motivation to advocate for yourself in your college application. Colleges want to see more from you than just the “numbers” that make up your application. Don’t get me wrong – your grades and standardized test scores are important! But there are other components of your application that you can use to speak up for yourself, tell your own unique story, and contextualize your achievements for the college admissions committees.
So, how can you do that? How can you make college admissions committees see you as a well-rounded human being with distinctive capabilities? There are a few different ways you can advocate for yourself in your college application. Let’s go through them one by one:
Use the Personal Statement to Express Yourself
Your personal statement or essay is an excellent opportunity for you to talk about what distinguishes you from the crowd. This can be a tricky requirement and many students fall into the trap of simply rehashing what’s already been listed in their extracurriculars or transcript, or simply bragging about what all their amazing qualities. While you can certainly use your essay to highlight an achievement or talk about your best qualities, the key is to build a memorable narrative with a clear central thesis that you explore in-depth, while also keeping the content and your “voice” as authentic and natural as possible. It’s a mistake to focus too much on what admissions committees will think of your topic. Ironically, that’s how many students end up using cliché topics that they think will impress the admissions committees, but actually don’t!
The fact is, when it comes to your personal statement, the “what” isn’t as important as the “how” and the “why”. Colleges don’t actually expect you to have discovered the meaning of life or achieved extraordinary things at this young age! What they want to see is meaningful self-reflection and excellent communication skills. You’ll need to dig deep and figure out your own story, one that shows a nuanced, subtle side of yourself. Even a seemingly trivial incident or experience can be the central topic for an interesting, memorable essay.
But remember that if you hope to craft an excellent personal statement, you’ll need more than just a few days. Give yourself a couple of months to brainstorm and write several rough drafts before you finalize your essay.
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Don’t Skip Any Optional Essays or Written Components
Some college applications include optional written components such as an additional essay to explain any gaps in your resume or present any additional important information about yourself. While it can be tempting to simply ignore these optional requirements so you have fewer items to worry about during application submission season, don’t underestimate the role they can play in your application review. For instance, if there was a gap in your academic history due to personal or health related reasons, or if your GPA suffered for a period of time due to a family tragedy, you could address these circumstances in an optional essay. You can also use optional essays to talk about how you faced difficulties and overcame obstacles, or provide details of extenuating circumstances for negative aspects of your application such as disciplinary action.
Remember, the key here is to focus on learning, growth, and the ultimate positive outcome. Don’t dwell on negative circumstances without a key takeaway about how you handled the situation or how you grew as a person.
Mistakes or adverse circumstances, even if they have permanent, long-term consequences, don’t necessarily have to destroy every chance of you getting into a good college. Admissions committees are often looking for students from diverse backgrounds, who have faced a variety of experiences and circumstances. By contextualizing your mistakes within a longer journey of growth and learning, you could show them that your past has actually helped to make you a stronger person and equipped you to handle challenges.
Personalize Your Secondary Essays
Secondary essays, or college supplementary essays, can be a source of great frustration for applicants. Just when you’ve finally finished submitting your primary application via Common App or another portal, you start receiving your secondary applications from colleges. Not all college send these, and the requirements vary – some ask for a single 250 word short essay in response to an open-ended prompt while others ask for multiple secondary essays of varying lengths, in response to various specific prompts.
The prompts can change from one year to the next so it’s not always possible to prepare these essays ahead of time. Moreover, you generally don’t get much time to work on them as schools don’t provide you more than a month, at the most, to submit your secondary application after you’ve received it.
But don’t let these challenging circumstances stop you from making the most of the opportunity that secondary essays present to advocate for yourself. Secondary college essays are typically focused on answering the question of why you want to go to that specific college. This is a great chance to make your application stand out. Colleges want to send out acceptances to students who are not only suitable for their college, but genuinely, passionately want to be there. That’s why a secondary essay with vague, general details, where the name of the college could easily be replaced without making much difference to the essay, is a big no-no. You need to make sure you add specific details of your special interest in the college and explain where it stems from. We completely understand how difficult it is to tailor your story for each school - we help our students with this all the time - but this strategy truly pays off!
Additionally, you can also use the secondary college essay to focus on why you, personally, belong on their campus. This isn’t just about what makes you a great student in general – you need to talk about how your personal qualities, values, and beliefs align with school’s mission and philosophy. Some of the brainstorming work you put in for your personal statement can help you with your secondary essays, especially in terms of identifying key experiences, events, people, and learnings to focus on from your life. But remember to tailor each secondary essay for the college you’re applying to and make it as unique as possible.
Get the Right Letters of Recommendation
The letters of recommendation of any college application should back up and amplify the best achievements of the applicant. That’s why it’s crucial to select referees who can provide a meaningful commentary on your abilities, skills, and best qualities. A common mistake is to simply opt for the teachers who taught you the most challenging classes, such as tough IB or AP courses. While it’s important to have letters of reference from academic referees who supervised you in high school, try and prioritize the teachers who you have a positive relationship with, and who can meaningfully comment on your abilities. If a teacher doesn’t really seem interested in giving you a letter of reference, it’s better to find another referee, even if they didn’t teach your most academically successful classes.
For instance, maybe there was a class where you struggled with poor grades and then eventually, with sustained hard work, substantially improved your grades. Or maybe there was a teacher who inspired you with their extra credit projects and could comment on your passion for a particular subject outside of your classroom performance. The most important thing is that your referees have a meaningful connection with you and are enthusiastic about writing you a letter of recommendation.
Make sure you approach your potential referee well in advance, so they have enough time to work on your letters, preferably at least a couple of months. When you approach them, take along a list of your key achievements, projects, and activities, so you can jog their memory about you as a student. Remember, teachers are approached by many students for references, and they might not always remember the details of your performance in or outside their class. Giving them a written reference for your key achievements can help them write a more well-informed, detailed letter of reference for you.
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Select Meaningful Activities
When it comes to extracurriculars in your college application, quality is more important than quantity. Rather than stuffing your application with every club, group, or summer program you’ve ever participated in, select the ones that are actually the most meaningful to you and focus on those. Colleges will be seeing application after application with a long list of activities and there’s no single activity or combination of activities that “guarantees” your admission. What they want to judge is what you gained from these activities.
Which activities show your long-term dedication and commitment to a specific cause or interest? Which activities helped you experience meaningful growth and taught you valuable life lessons? The activities where you have the biggest “achievements” might not necessarily be the most memorable for you. A volunteer activity, or a work experience, where you were able to learn a new personal skill or help people in a meaningful way, could up being the most effective inclusion in your college app list of activities.
Conclusion
The college admissions process, with its many expectations and pressures, can make you feel stressed out, powerless, and out of control. You might feel you’re up against a system that reduces you to a mere checklist of achievements. But whatever your academic history and extracurricular record, never forget that your college application itself is an excellent opportunity for you to speak up for yourself. You should make sure you use all the avenues available to you – whether it’s essays, list of activities, or letters of recommendation – to highlight your best qualities and provide a unique perspective on yourself. Not only does this maximize your chances of success during the admissions process, the self-introspection and self-advocacy could actually help you learn valuable lessons about who you are and what you want from life .
