How to list
Some College On Resume
Activities That DO Impress Colleges!!! OWN the College Admissions Process
Sharing buttons:
hey guys it's Brooke was super tutor TV
are you wondering what activities should
I do to impress colleges or do the
activities that I happen to do help make
me a better candidate for college
admissions before we get into things I
recommend that everyone subscribe to our
channel you can do so by clicking
subscribe below this video and head of
our website super tutor tv.com slash
subscribe to subscribe to our mailing
list as well as to check out the best a
CT prep course ever it's over 50 hours
of video content it's at your own pace
and it's a heck of a lot cheaper than
thousands of dollars in private tutoring
so go check that out let's get going
so what are some activities that
colleges do care about well first of all
what I'm going to say is that there's no
one activity that colleges think is
better than any other activity colleges
are looking more at the endgame result
of what your activities produce more
than they are the specific area of
interest that your particular activity
covers it's not as if they like athletes
more than they like musicians in fact
colleges want a diverse student body
they want students who do lots of
different activities the second thing
that I'm going to say is when I make
this video I can't speak for every
College in the United States first of
all that's just impossible but what I'll
also say is for the most part I'm
focusing on the kind of schools that are
very competitive
that means they typically have less than
a 25% admin rate and they typically are
ranked in the top 50 schools in the
United States on some sort of nationally
recognized list that's what I'm dealing
with for the most part so with my
caveats aside I'm going to talk through
four things that colleges are looking
for in activities that make you a
standout candidate and the first idea
that I'm going to talk about is the idea
of leadership leadership can take
multiple forms leadership could be a
specific role that you take within an
activity that you're involved in such as
being president of the student council
right leadership can also be the idea of
taking initiative and being a little bit
entrepreneurial and making something
happen and in terms of how colleges look
at leadership like what leadership
more important than other leadership you
know it really is gonna come down to
individual colleges but the bottom line
that I can tell you guys is that if
you're taking initiative meaning you're
coming up with ideas and you're trying
to have an impact on the world around
you that's what leadership is I think
there's a misconception that leadership
is simply getting voted by your peers
into a quote position of leadership
leadership is an attribute that evidence
is itself and the way that you act and
in the results that you produce so I
encourage all of you to look for
opportunities for leadership and the
activities that you have and that could
be everything from being captain of the
baseball team to actually creating some
sort of brand new initiative or project
or something that really proves that you
are going to be making a difference in
the world okay all right let's get on to
my second factor that I think colleges
are looking for and that factor is
excellence
so what could that look like well that
could look like maybe you play the
violin and you're a really rockstar
violinist and maybe you play your violin
in concerts at the local college because
you're that good maybe you are in your
youth symphony it could also be just
that you're really good at whatever you
do so that could mean that you're really
good at rhythmic gymnastics or fencing
now what I'm going to say with
excellence is you definitely can't read
the trodden path with excellence and be
very good at something that is
traditional right you could be really
good at a sport it can be really good at
music you can be really good at these
sort of traditional extracurricular
activities that most high schools and
United States offer if you rides at the
top at your school and then you rise in
the top in your district and you rise
the top in your state right you'd be the
best debater in the state whatever it is
that's one path to being excellent but
there's kind of a back door to being
excellent and that's the other thing I
don't want to talk about because I know
some of you are like I'm never gonna be
the best tennis player my state like
that's just never gonna happen
so how the heck do I show excellence
well another kind of back door to
excellence is if you can do something
that's a little bit more original and
you could be really good at that kind of
rate
original thing sometimes that's a path
to getting into the excellence door at a
top-10 school where this kind of thing
actually matters a lot and sneaking in
even though you know you wouldn't ever
be excellent enough if you did something
that thousands of people are doing right
like being the best violin it's like
that's really hard but being the best
sitar player that might be a possibility
but whatever it is that you do if you do
it with excellence and you can find a
way to stand out that really stands out
to colleges all right let's move on to
the next factor the next factor is
commitment colleges care about
activities that you have committed
yourself to and that means that you
spend a good amount of time doing them
this goes without saying if you're
trying to be excellent at something a
lot of the time to be excellent at
something you have to put a good amount
of time into it right that's not to say
that you can't do something senior year
only and it won't be impressive but what
I would say is that if you've put a lot
of time and effort into some passion or
into some activity over the years that's
going to show and it's going to speak to
colleges so just keep that in mind if
you have a narrative that's extended
over the course of years that's really
important I know for my international
students this can sometimes be very
difficult
I know I've worked with students in Asia
before and they have so much expected of
them in terms of academics that they
don't have time for activities and so
it's really hard for them to show this
kind of commitment factor if you're in
that boat my best advice is to just find
all the time that you can and to try to
show that commitment however you can
maybe it's that you amp up the hours
that you spend during the summer or
maybe it means that you try to take on
some activities that are more
independent in some way maybe that means
you're doing a research project or maybe
that means you're writing articles or
creating art that you're submitting to
competitions or something like that but
whatever it is make sure that you're
committed and that you are spending
enough time on something to show
colleges that you know how to dedicate
yourself to an idea so the fourth thing
that I'm going to talk about is
something what I call a WOW factor
and how do you get a WOW factor well you
get a WOW factor by doing something that
makes people go whoa
or Wow and what activities do that well
part of the the prerequisite for being a
WoW activity often has to do with the
idea of it being something that not
every high school student is doing so to
get a WOW factor you might need to think
outside the box a little bit there's the
obvious while factors and that's that
you've qualified for the top levels of
whatever high school competitions exist
and that's like the traditional route
and that traditional route it goes for
every sport it goes for musical
instruments it goes for all of that kind
of stuff but I also think you can come
up with a wow factor in unconventional
ways too and that can be maybe your
activity itself is a little bit
unconventional but you rise to the top
of it I had a girl that I work with
several years ago who got an MIT and she
was creating MATLAB coding and and
basically studying epidemiology using
raw data from Twitter online and like
number crunching to try to see if she
could read trends in like influenza and
infections throughout different regions
in the United States I mean and I'm
probably watching all of this year but
my point is is like she was able to
write in her essays about this really
cool self-study project that she was
doing that kind of made my jaw drop a
little bit because I was like wow how
would you even think to do that as a
high school student to be like
undergoing independent research on like
epidemiology through data and be like
data crunching because you want to go
into statistics and data crunching like
that's really impressive and really cool
another thing that can really produce a
wow factor is anything that you pursue
that's the kind of thing that you would
usually expect only an adult to do if
you can do something that's impressive
in the same way that an adult would be
impressive if you can do something
entrepreneurial if you can do something
that affects the real world or that
interacts with the real world in a very
tangible way in a way that an impressive
adult could do that can create a wow
factor
okay I know some of you might be very
overwhelmed by this idea of trying to
find a WOW factor
but it is what it is I would say it's
very hard to end an era wow factor it
can be but that's why it's a wow factor
so my best advice is to just try to
think of the ways that you can be
creative and that you can push the
envelope and that you can do something
that a normal teenager wouldn't do if
you can do that that's really gonna
stand out to colleges especially like
your top ten schools colleges care about
this stuff for very selective admissions
and just because you don't have all this
stuff doesn't mean that you're not
awesome or you don't have something to
offer or that you won't get into a top
college I'm just saying that if you have
an activity that falls in the range of
any of these ideas that I talked about
today that could be a bonus on your
application that could actually help
push it forward or push it to the top of
the pile I'm talking about activities
that move the needle not activities that
you must have in order to get into any
top 50 school they're activities that
are going to make you stand out and rise
to the top of a pile now again if we're
talking top 10 schools these might be
necessary depending on what your
background is and depending on what the
competition looks like in any given year
but I hope you guys found this helpful
if you did please subscribe to our
channel here and go check us out we're
on Facebook we're on Instagram we're on
Twitter we're all over the map so please
connect with us and stay tuned and we
will see all of you guys next time on
super tutor TV thanks so much for
watching bye
