First Tip: Create an academic and extracurricular resume!
Before a student brainstorms about essay topics, it is essential to create an active resume. Williams Educational recommends creating a google doc with a list of current and past activities from every year in high school. When writing the list of activities, think about the following questions:
Why did you get involved?
What did you learn?
Were you a leader?
How much time did you spend on the activity?
Do you want to continue the activity while in college?
Did this activity shape your character?
Who did you connect to because of your involvement?
How would you describe your role in the activity listed?
Were there any awards or honors you earned through this activity?
Were there any measurable results you achieved through your involvement?
Creating a resume is essential because the student needs to know that their application has a section specifically for activities. When students work with Williams Educational Consultants, we encourage our families to complete the activity list so that the student will see what they are writing about in this application section.
Why is this important?
This is important because each application section needs to present new material, not repeat anything. Therefore, we recommend that the essay not use any detail that is on the activity section.
For instance, let’s say your student has been involved on the tennis team all 4 yers (Captain their senior year), in the National Honors Society (Treasurer their senior year), a self-taught musician, violinist in the orchestra for 4 year, worked locally at a pizza pub for 2 years, traveled to Spain for their Language Immersion program, and so on.
Then you won’t want to highlight these activities in the essay portion of the application.
Starting with a resume might help a student focus on other topics for the essay!