What Do We Get? (Part 7 of 8)
STRATEGIES TO MAKE YOUR APPLICATION COUNT Series
An important point to remember as you complete your college applications is that colleges to which you are applying don’t have to admit you just because you are a good candidate academically. Your academic record merely puts you on the competitive “playing field.” In order to gain admission, you need to give the decision-makers a reason to want to admit you.
If you have heard me talk about the admission process you know that I liken the selection of applicants into the class to community building. Admission officers scan the hundreds of academically qualified candidates for those whom they want to include in the communities they are building on their campuses. Their questions raised upon acknowledgment of your competitiveness sound something like this: “We know she is a capable student, but what do we get if we admit her? What will she bring to the community we are trying assemble?”
This phase of the application review process is critical to all but a few of the candidates who are truly academic superstars. If your credentials don’t put you in that category, you need to be mindful of other talents, interests or perspectives that might set you apart from your peers—“gifts,” if you will that might put your candidacy over the top in a tight competition.
In preparing your applications for admission, then, it is important to remember that your applications are like personal statements in which you are saying, “This is who I am and what I have to offer.”
Bring your talent to life. If you are a musician, make a studio quality recording (tape or CD). Audition if you can. If you are an artist, attend portfolio days or assemble a slide collection of your work to submit with your application. This demonstration of talent will be required for entry into highly selective conservatory or specialty programs in the arts. It can also make the difference for you at schools that value the arts but are not pre-professionally oriented. You do not need to have professional aspirations as an artist, musician, actor or dancer—or even a major in the arts—in order for your talent to give you a competitive edge in the selective admission process.
If you are an athlete, make sure your high school coach provides a good introduction or “scouting report” for the college coaches that might be interested in recruiting you. Be prepared to submit one or two game films—and resist the temptation to put together a highlight reel! Much as recruiting coaches want to see your skills, they also want to see what you do when you are not in the middle of the action.
By demonstrating your talents in this way, you go beyond the listing of activities and achievements on your application to reveal the nuances of tone and texture that distinguish your performance from the rest of the competition. More importantly, you give admission officers reasons to want to admit you because they value you for what you do well.
In a previous blog article…
I observed that applicants should proceed cautiously with regard to submitting resumes with their applications for admission. Having worked with a number of students as they prepare their applications, though, I feel I need to change my view on the topic. This is especially true for users of the Common Application. The current version of the Common Application produces downloadable documents that are hard to read. This is particularly true of the Extracurricular Section where the detail associated with listed activities is difficult to follow.
That said, it might make sense to produce a brief resume that you can attach to your application. Keep it focused on activities and achievements from your high school years and organize it around the key themes of your application.
|
