The best thing I have ever read on this subject is this post from MIT, which I think is really applicable to highly selective holistic review colleges in the US in general, not just MIT:
The whole thing is well worth reading and carefully considering, but this is their core advice for people in HS:
- Do well in school. Take tough classes. Interrogate your beliefs and presumptions. Pursue knowledge with dogged precision. Because it is better to be educated and intelligent than not.
- Be nice. This cannot be overstated. Don’t be wanton or careless or cruel. Treat those around you with kindness. Help people. Contribute to your community.
- Pursue your passion. Find what you love, and do it. Maybe it’s a sport. Maybe it’s an instrument. Maybe it’s research. Maybe it’s being a leader in your community. Math. Baking. Napping. Hopscotch. Whatever it is, spend time on it. Immerse yourself in it. Enjoy it.
A few observations I would make in your case, taking each of those things in order.
First, they don’t expect you to do more academically than what is possible within the context of your HS. So just try to reasonably challenge yourself in every way actually available to you.
Second, I think many, many Internationals really do not take that part about “Being nice” sufficiently seriously. It just isn’t really part of the culture of higher education in most countries, meaning in most countries, your university options are largely dictated just by your general academic qualifications and possibly your qualifications for some specific degree program. The idea these “top” universities in the US would care a lot about your demonstrated personal and social life just seems wildly implausible.
But, they do. They see themselves as shaping an entire community of students, not just admitting highly qualified individuals. So they do want to admit highly qualified people, but they also want to admit such people they are confident will not just be focused on individual achievement, but will also be highly valued by the other students in their community. And that means being consistently nice, and helpful, and a contributor to your community, and so on, even when you get no title or award or any other recognition for it.
And so I think you need to take being such a person just as seriously as your grades or your activities. And that may not be what a lot of your peers think is important. It may not in fact be what your parents think is important. But it is a large part of what these colleges think is important.
OK, third, I think many Internationals, sort of consistent with the above, think of activities purely as opportunities to generate awards, titles, or otherwise “impressive” achievements, particularly in relationship to their intended major. But that is far too limited. These colleges are very interested in what you might actually do besides academics when you are actually in college, and so a long list of activities not related to your intended major could be of interest to them.
They also are interested in what activities say about you as a person, but this can be tricky. Like, a lot of kids seem to think starting a charity will show they care about other people, but I think there can be some skepticism about whether a given kid is really doing that because they think it is the best way to help others, or if instead they are doing it to get some personal credit for it. That is in part because there are many existing charitable organizations who could use volunteer help, and so often it might actually do more good to act through such an organization rather than start a new one that might not even last past your college admissions. Again, I am not saying it never makes sense to start something, I just think you need to be cautious about what will end up looking like authentic caring, and what might at least be perceived as self-interested.
OK, so as they say there, the key is to pursue your actual passions. And maybe writing is your passion. Great, there are lots of valued college student activities which involve writing (and you don’t have to be an English or Journalism major to be involved). So writing is among the “good” sorts of things to be passionate about.
So what should you do with this passion? Well, a lot of writing! It doesn’t have to be for a competition, you can write for your own purposes. Of course if you want to do some writing for an organization, great. If you want to try to publish some writing in some other way, also great. But understand lots of writers write lots of things that never get published. But they love writing, and all the things they never publish are part of their process for becoming better writers.
So, immerse yourself in writing, enjoy writing, and do not get hung up on whether everything you write will turn into some sort of external reward. Doing a lot of writing for yourself will in fact show the kind of maturity and self-motivation these colleges are actually looking for.
OK, that’s a lot to absorb, but I truly think it is the best sort of advice you can get. And I do think it is quite different from the sort of advice you may get from peers, parents, social media, and so on. But it is the kind of advice I keep seeing come out of these actual colleges, and indeed it is consistent from what we have seen when people get their admissions files, from the litigation over admissions, and so on.
So I really think you should take this advice, all of it, very seriously. Even if a lot of people around you seem to be focusing on different things.
Indeed, when you think about it–very small percentages of Internationals get admitted to some of these colleges, particularly if you need substantial aid. Trying to stand out by doing the same things a bunch of other highly qualified Internationals are doing is not exactly the most logical strategy. But if in fact you are thinking about US college admissions in a way most of them are not, that might well be truly helpful.
