LPT: When applying to college, it is important to have a strong spike rather than many underdeveloped activities and interests

I have a relative that works closely with Duke admissions officers and I realized the admissions are looking for things completely opposite of what your counselor or parent might be saying.

I see lots of people give advice such as your child needs to be well rounded, or that they need to be in many different activities. It pains me to see children being shuttled to activity after another everyday even though it will not help them much when applying for college.

College, especially good ones, look for students that show success in their field, and can go out and accomplish big things afterwards.

This is what an admissions dean from Harvard said:

"Each year we admit about 2,100 applicants. We like to think that all of them have strong personal qualities and character, that they will educate and inspire their classmates over the four years of college, and that they will make a significant difference in the world after they leave Harvard”

This means that in order for college to predict future success they look at past achievements. Doing a ton of random activities and being mediocre will never help you. Anyone can do that.

The key to success is to sit down, figure out your interest, pick one or two, and figure out how to make the largest spike possible. This is how you differentiate yourself from the thousands and thousands of other applicants that also have tons of extra curricular.

This means instead of doing random bits of volunteering, pick a problem in your community and act independently on it. This means instead if being a member of Science olympiad, math club,and ton of other stuff, pick one like science olympiad and win at a national level.

For me, I did research with a professor and was a big player in a non profit to teach less fortunate kids music.

I suggest starting as soon as possible, as junior year of high school is not enough time to somehow become a master at something.

A really great guide that I found that explains this so much better