Do these 7 things to make your college application stand out

Selective colleges and universities have become more discerning than ever. Although the average four-year college in the U.S. offers a spot to nearly 60% of applicants, the number of kids applying keeps increasing, making that higher ed spot harder and harder to lock down. Over the past 20 years, the number of applications submitted to colleges has risen more than 150%.

For highly selective institutions, those sought-after slots have become conspicuously hard to obtain. So how can today’s students get noticed by college admissions officers and application readers?

Grades are just the starting point — necessary but not nearly sufficient. “The more selective the college, typically, the more the pieces outside of academics matter more,” said Leah Beasley-Wojick, founder and president of Beasley College Consulting. “It’s what students do with their free time that usually makes the difference.”

The Free Press asked Beasley-Wojick and two other college admissions experts what students can do beyond the classroom to stand out from the stack.

Get out of school

Taking on leadership positions in school-organized clubs and activities is a great way to demonstrate your strengths and capabilities. But working on a personal project shows that you’re not relying on things the school set up for you — a powerful indicator of interest and initiative.

Ashleigh Taylor, founder of Empowered 4 College and a college application strategist, recommends what she calls “self-initiated volunteer work": coming up with your own fundraiser for a cause you care about, or putting on your own coding camp for elementary school students in your area are examples of activities students can do to both give back and put their own passions and strengths on display.

Those show creativity, initiative and leadership — something many universities prioritize for both admissions and scholarships.

Don’t ‘pay to play’

If there’s one thing to avoid using to impress an admissions committee, experts agreed it’s opportunities they call “pay to play.” These are programs a student or family pays for in order to participate, and they can be extravagant.

If you come across an opportunity to fly to Puerto Rico to help build a sidewalk (true story), chances are this will not demonstrate any particular talent or interest that will grab a university's attention.

“College admissions officers are savvy; they're reviewing tens of thousands of applications and they know when a student has had to pay $1,000 to help sea turtles in Costa Rica,” said Beasley-Wojick. “It doesn't mean that those experiences can't be beneficial, but I think you can do just as well to volunteer at the local animal shelter, or help an elderly neighbor with yardwork or go to the community garden …”

Develop an angle

“All college admissions officers are looking for students who have consistent commitment to a handful of activities,” said Beasley-Wojick. Doing 15 different activities is going to burn your child out and spread them thin, she said.

Instead, students would do well to find what Taylor calls the “application angle.”  Having a clear focus helps differentiate students during the review process, she says. “They don't seem quite as all over the place because they start to focus their interest on the things they care most about.”

Being able to tie those activities cohesively together makes for a compelling and understandable application. If you’re an amazing tennis player, it makes sense to be captain of the tennis team and also do community service running tennis clinics for kids in inner-city schools.

“Be sincere and focused in your activities,” said Barbara Connolly, president of College Choice Counseling. “One of the biggest (pieces of) advice I give to all my students about activities is, let’s do depth and quality over a frantic quantity approach.”

More: Opinion: To start changing the world, volunteer

Show outcome

To really stand out, students need to take those interests and pursuits to the next level. As Connolly puts it, “you want to show that there was a product to your pursuit.”

Did you spend your evenings writing short stories? Submit them to writing competitions or literary magazines. Do you love sewing and designing? Offer to create costumes for the school musical, or the movie your friends are making.

These activities “can be very eye-catching so long as you take these things and turn that into something that can be recognized by the community,” Connolly said.

If you were involved in in-school activities, show how you innovated and got outcomes.

Be genuine

The rarer a talent is, the less competition there may be for a student who can offer that to a college community, says Taylor. There could be a better chance of getting recruited or earning scholarship money if your child is the only applicant who plays the upright bass, and the university orchestra happens to need one.

But man, that’s a long shot, and who wants to practice the upright bass for three hours a day if you don’t already love it?

“If you tell a student, 'if you play squash, this will get you into a highly selective (institution)' and they hate every second of squash, that’s not going to work,” said Beasley-Wojick. “I mean, they’re teenagers, sometimes you need to push them to do things outside their comfort zone,” she said, but genuine passion will always be evident.

Beasley-Wojick recommends having thoughtful conversations with your child to identify ways to explore their true interests and strengths. Colleges and universities want to see from students that they know who they are and what they’ll bring to their school community.

Get a job!

Of all the activities students can engage in to show their ability to manage time, lead teams, interact with the community and demonstrate responsibility and commitment, getting a job might be the most impactful.

Connolly calls having a summer or school-year job “the most impressive activity out of school.” Internships and shadowing can be equally helpful.

Having a job shows independence and — if you’re doing it to earn money for something you really want or care about — can be yet another way to emphasize your interests and talents.

For plenty of kids, having a job is not a choice. And when it comes to applying for college, that’s fine. Maybe you worked at that restaurant all summer because your parents rely on you to help with gas money. Show why you worked, what it allowed you or your family to do and why it mattered.

Start early but don’t stress

For kids who know from a young age what gets them excited and motivated to learn and achieve, there’s no harm in starting to look at ways to demonstrate interest and talent as early as eighth or ninth grade. Students who love to write or create art might submit work to the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, for example.

Most students, however, will want to use the middle and early high school years simply for exploration.

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Connolly suggests starting to think about college at the beginning of sophomore year if you have a wide group of institutions to research or visit. That way, students and families have plenty of time to get to know how the system works. But working on the kinds of demanding activities and projects you’ll be highlighting in an application can wait until junior year, when you have a clearer sense of what your focus is.

Although getting into a selective university seems to have a high bar, Connolly says it shouldn’t feel like that. “It should be all with joy, all with genuine interest.”

Jennifer Brookland covers child welfare for the Detroit Free Press in partnership with Report for America. Reach her at jbrookland@freepress.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: How to make your college application stand out: Do these 7 things