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Throughout my time dealing with students looking for universities, one of the main questions that always comes up is: “Am I good enough? Will I get in?”

In fact, students’ grades or their score in an exam such as the SAT or the ACT are not the only things that matter. In fact, most schools do not even require an SAT or ACT score for admission any more.

What really matters to universities is what students contribute – or will contribute – to this planet.

Students need to know that universities are looking for students to represent them. If a student attends their school and makes it look bad, that would be negative publicity, which costs the school money.

But if a student goes on – either while at the school and or afterwards – to achieve something significant, they will be named as “Graduate of XXX school”. This is what universities want. It’s essentially free publicity.

Putting everything into an application

So, as I’ve told many students this year, they need to put everything that they are doing into their applications. All the activities, all the events they have participated in, all the awards. The more, the better. This will show the universities how much they have accomplished.

Many students will think that certain activities are not very worthwhile – that there is no point in including them. So it is our job to convince them otherwise. Of course, if activities or qualifications are out of date, then they should not be shared – but the majority can be.

I have students who are part of a school drama club, as well as another drama club run by a former teacher outside school. I tell them to include both. The in-school club may not be as grand as the out-of-school one, but it emphasises students’ commitment and focus to drama.

Other students have helped with different types of community service. Some have been involved in huge projects, creating libraries for at-need areas and reading for the kids there. Others just do small food drives. Size does not matter. If you are helping others, then you are doing good in the world, and you should share it, in order to show others who you are and what your values are.

Schools hold different educational Olympiads, in science or maths, with medals for the most successful students. These also need to be included in university applications – especially for those students who have won gold or silver medals for multiple years in a row.

Commitment and dedication

More recently, our school has created a student-led organisation to help other students with maths. For many reasons, participating students should be listing their work there as part of their accomplishments.

Membership of sports teams should be included – even if it is just a small-scale team, competing against some other schools in the area. The teams – and students – might not be the best in the state, or even their county, but those activities require time commitment and dedication, which not everyone is able to demonstrate.

I work on a supplemental programme, which compares the Brazilian curriculum to the US curriculum, and then provides classes in the subjects that are missing, so that students can graduate with a dual diploma. These students may feel that they’re just taking extra classes – but they need to understand how they look compared with students who do not have five or six extra hours of class time, plus homework assignments, every week.

Sometimes it can be challenging just convincing the students how much of what they do affects the world, and how important that therefore makes them.

So I tell them to put everything into their application. It does not matter how important they think it is – just put it in, anyway.

If the university does not care about it, that’s fine. The students would still be demonstrating everything that they do to make them the students – and the people – they are. The members of society they are, and will be.

This is the vital element that universities are often looking for.