How could i make my college app look better?

Answered

Hey, there! I'm sure other replies will have great answers for SAT prep, extracurriculars, etc., but many people overlook this aspect and it is a GREAT hack! Google "[name of school you are interested in] common data set". Find a pdf or webpage that has the school's common data set scroll to their "Basis for Selection: Relative Importance of Factors in Admission Decision" (wording may vary). This will give you great ideas of what to focus on and strengthen by school. You might see that the school doesn't consider things like class rank, and instead prefers a good SAT score. Hope this helps, good luck!!

I would recommend taking the ACT just to see if you perform better on it than the SAT. A lot of people pick one or the other to put on their college application.

This is coming from a Senior: Great job so far! Your GPA is awesome and you got a great score on your SAT. Here's how you can improve your collegeapp resume if you haven't already:

1. Make sure to sign up for the SAT as soon as possible. Great job taking the pSAT - Studies show that greatly improves your scores on the actual SAT. I put off taking the SAT. However, I am now finding that the list to take the SAT is way longer than you would think! There aren't any openings in my area, and I might have to travel a couple of hours just to take it, so I'd highly recommend that you apply now so you don't have to jump through any hoops.

2. Fill out the grades for the individual courses you have taken so far in the commonapp. It will take a while, but it's really worth it! You can submit applications for colleges using the grades that you filled out in your commonapp, and it app also shows scholarships that you are eligible for. Doing your grades on the commonapp makes it so that you don't have to fill them out for each application - Big timesaver!

3. You mentioned lots of extracurriculars - Great job! When listing out your extracurriculars in the commonapp, you should mention whether you have leadership positions. Whether you are a captain on a sports team or a club treasurer, colleges eat it up! Any indications that you show leadership qualities or any promising personal traits involved in an activity - Those are the extracurriculars that you should list.

Keep up the great work! Good luck!

work on improving your SAT score and grades. also, be sure that your extracurriculars highlight your intended major, initiative taking skills, and leadership skills!

If you intend to apply through the common app, here are a few tips to make your 'activities' section stand out;

1) Numbers are your best friend: The more numbers you include about the awards you’ve won, the number of people you’ve impacted, the amount of positive feedback you’ve received, and so on, the better your application will appear and the more likely it will be thoroughly reviewed by the admission officers.

2) Quality over quantity: It is not necessary to fill in all 10 activities. If you don’t have enough to fill every slot, it is absolutely okay to leave a few blank. Colleges focus on depth and achievements within each individual activity, rather than the total number of activities listed.

3) Interest Match: Try involving yourself in extracurriculars that are directly related to your major, as they can substantially strengthen your application. However, it is not necessary to restrict yourself solely to your major’s domain—a few activities outside of it are perfectly fine.

lastly, work on boosting your SAT score and you're good to go :)

Improve your grade by studying the part you constantly having difficulty or forgotten, retake the SAT (but some colleges doesn't like you retake it as its doesn't show humbleness and always reject you after 3 SAT exam retakes and some take the median or doesn't accept "Superscoring" so it depend on what you're applying). So extracurriculars might help but i only seen it only helpful at US colleges because other colleges just only look at your grade or grade & standardized test scores only or accept you regardless of your grade and scores if the government have mandated college attendance like certain European countries.

Hi! I don't know if you count this under extracurriculars, but community service is a great way to help your community, but also your college apps. You're doing great and I would not be too worried.

I think you already have some great stats so one way to further improve your and extend your interests and achievements to your college apps would be by finding maybe 3 activities that have really connected with your interests that are all similarly related. Then, think of a personal experience that has motivated you to pursue a field of study (poli sci, biology, etc). Try and focus on creating your own opportunities by bridging this moment of personal experience with one or two of your activities by turning it into something bigger like a community project, non-profit, internship, or club. For example, if you really enjoyed going to nature reserves when you were little and now you are interested in sciences and participate in debate team or model UN, you could start an entire new club or self-run organization connecting the two such as using your speech skills to do conservation advocacy work. Sorry if this is confusing, but I have found that admissions officers really like when you show some unique and personal connections to an already popular extracurricular and making it unique to you as an applicant. Goodluck!

Good job on your score!