hi y’all, I tried asking this on reddit but the college subreddits are a bit bogged down right now…
I recently came across a video on TikTok by someone who’d graduated from 3 different ivies (woah), saying that writing a book is not a passion project because 1) it doesn’t impact people, 2) it’s just a short term thing, and 3) you just “write it and publish it and you’re done”.
I’m aware that lots of people, and I cringe every time I come across this, will write and “publish” (like, self-pub) a book specifically to look good on college apps. heck, I’ve come across people who use chatgpt to write it. I assume that’s what this guy was thinking about.
but, I think my situation might be different? I’ve written (when I say “written”, I’m just counting a completed first draft; only some have been rewritten/fully edited) several books since I was 11, working on a couple more right now. also got silver keys for both excerpts I sent to the scholastic awards but I didn’t take it so seriously and am planning on doing better next year.
I really do strive to get traditionally published one day, but expecting me to trad pub right now in high school is kind of insane (I know talented adults who have been writing for decades and still struggle to find an agent even, also I write middle grade and the market for that is terrible right now). my essay was going to revolve around this though
does this hold any value to colleges or is it not really a valid passion project because it doesn’t show leadership/impact? the most impact i’ve had is being on critiquecircle dot com (a lifesaver to me, or uh, book saver) lol
Will a college take it seriously or not - is up to the school. Don’t forget, many/most colleges don’t even look at ECs at all - so a lot has to do with your school list.
If any concerns, make sure you have one or two other ECs too - where you build tenure and impact…two preferably.
But in the end, pursue the things that make you happy.
ECs are a part of you but nothing is a bigger part of you than your academics and tests.
Listen, you do the best you can - and if you don’t get into UVA and statistically you won’t, there’s lots of other mid-large great flagships - so you’ll find a home.
Focusing on only one school is not the way to run a search - and while UVA is great, so are many of the other flagships, even if US News says they’re lower ranked - which is meaningless in life btw.
UVA itself, in the common data set section C7, rates Rigor, Rank (for those who have), GPA, character (whatever that means) and state residency as Very Important. ECs are a notch down as important.
The important thing to know is - you are who you are. You can’t change that. If you’re a 10th grader or less, you have time to add an EC and make an impact. But if all you have is writing and it’s your passion, then you go with it.
speaking of that critique circle website, this reminds me of something someone said on the forums over there recently; “there’s a better chance of winning the lottery than getting published”. of course, a bunch of people pointed out that that’s too broad of a way to look at it. it’s not like the lottery, because each person has a different chance.
some people statistically would get in, some people statistically won’t. good grades and ECs are like buying a couple billion lottery tickets when most people are buying a few, going back to that analogy
But UVA has top applicants and a 17% acceptance rate - so one in six get in.
btw - interesting from our UVA tour, the first thing they said was - we need to sell you because we’ll invite people to come and less than half will accept our offer (yield) and sure enough, last year 40% of admits attended…which is high for a public university btw.
In the end, you are you - don’t over analyze.
Have you considered doing a chance me thread?
Are you from Virginia?
There’s so many possibilities out there for all kids - so you’ll give it your best and the chips will land where they land.
haha the school I go to right now had a 17% acceptance rate too. but I am instate. I did a chance me on reddit, a couple people said it’s worth a shot, but I only had my PSAT scores. I’ll do one on here once I have SAT and ACT scores.
thanks!
If you love writing novels then do it! It is important to follow the things that interest and excite you. But understand: 1) a college admission officer may not be able to discern the quality of an unpublished novel; and 2) that writing a novel does not indicate how you might get involved and add to the overall college community.
Perhaps you could expand your horizons and use your love of writing to add one or two more traditional ECs in your school or community. Some ideas might be to work on your school’s literary magazine, write feature articles for the newspaper, become a writing tutor, volunteer at a library, offer to give readings or teach a writing class at a senior center, etc.
I was hoping they wouldn’t mind quality lol since it’s a craft that can and will be refined/improved upon as time progresses, and focus more on the perseverance/work ethic aspect of it (by the end of this year I plan to finish my fourth one, and I think that might be rare bc I meet so many people that wrote the first chapter of a book when they were like 13 and never worked on it again lol)
but if it does matter a lot to them, would awards be a good indicator for quality? mostly scholastic but i’m gonna try and enter youngarts. i’m also sending in a short story to an anthology at a small publisher, if that gets accepted would that mean anything
I think admission officers know exactly what self-publishing is and recognize that anyone willing to pay can self-publish regardless of the quality of the work.
I don’t work for UVA admissions and cannot say what awards they would value.
You’ve been given great ideas/ways to tie your writing passions into ECs. If you’re a Junior, you really don’t have time to make a large dent - but you can smart with small steps.
No one will know - and if you get into UVA - then awesome. And then if you don’t, you’ll never know the why - whether its ECs, essays ,LORs, grades, rigor, etc.
I’m guessing you are in 10th grade - is that right? If so, @happy1 made some great suggestions. Others may be, walking dogs at the shelter, getting a part time job, school related clubs of anything, and more.
No matter what anyone tells you on here - only the UVA admissions folks will know - at that time - and this will be a very small part of what they say in the entirety of you.
So decide - do you want to step up and do more- or stay the course.
There’s no wrong answer.
And of course, you’ll have plenty of great choices (not knowing your profile) whether UVA, JMU, CNU, WVU or wherever.
a part time job?? nobody at MLWGS (that gets >3 hours of sleep) has a part time job. they don’t give us the time for that
I’d love to walk dogs but my high-maintenance poodle would be jealous
great suggestions, though—I’m getting a summer job. will likely be something with kids, like a summer camp, because one of my career choices is a teacher and someone recommended I see if I’m okay working with them.
after some research it looks like the anthology publication + regional and national awards will hold more weight than the school clubs (not just for college but when querying agents in the future), so that’s good. thanks y’all for the help
I might have a slightly different take here. (and feel free to ignore my take if you don’t feel like it is right for you).
If you love writing, PLEASE DO THAT!
In my opinion, the “strategy” part comes into play when you go to talk about the activity when you create a clear narrative in your applications, NOT when you are choosing which activity to pursue. (The idea of a “passion project” is I know a little trendy, but ugh…rubs me so the wrong way – it’s the tail wagging the dog IMO).
Of course, I think you are smart to think eventually about things like “how will you show the depth of your work” on something like novel-writing. I think the answer comes from an organic place of digging deeper and deeper into your love of writing novels, not from worrying about it being an impressive passion project.
This sounds like it’s maybe the same thing, but writer-to-writer, I am saying: words matter, and the distinction is subtle but important.
I love that you are a writer.
Explore that deeply. Every which way. Something cool always comes out of honoring our deepest loves. Trust that it will happen if you show up for yourself. And trust that you will be able to talk about it when the time comes.
I might be missing it but I don’t know what grade you are in, so that will also inform what next steps are, and how long you have before you need to take a step back and talk strategically about this activity.
So my TLDR: follow your soul. Go deep. Explore what comes up. Give it your all. Cool things will come; unexpected discoveries as you go. Worry zero percent about a so-called “passion project.” Be strategic about how you talk about this deep thing in your applications as a senior, knowing that the cool part will likely be one of the “unexpected discoveries” probably NOT the actual activity of “oh I wrote a book.”
Finally – UVA is 100% not the only place for a writer. It may not even be your best fit. Keep an open mind for now. Wear your love of UVA loosely, and focus on your writer soul, not your applications. :).
My take on this: For ECs, do what is right for you. Whatever you do, do it well. Be the best version of you that you can be. If writing a book is the right thing for you, then write a book.
To me this sounds like a good EC. It would not be the right EC for me, but it sounds like it is a good one for you.
@Calliemomofgirls thank you so much—this advice should help with my essay. it wasn’t just going to be “I wrote 4 1/2 books and i really want to be an author so that’s why you should accept me”, I was going to talk more about the change (particularly in how I see/approach writing and storytelling and just things that take a lot of work and dedication in general) that it’s brought in me. colleges like that personal stuff I think
also. UVA isn’t the only school i’m applying to haha. idk where people in this thread got that. I was just the most concerned about it because 1) it’s the most competitive one I’m going for, and 2) the video I mentioned in my first post was talking about how UVA apparently had a huge bias (I don’t mean this in a bad way) towards people with passion projects last year
true but this is not the case for nearly 100% of them. it’s a huge, huge risk, especially with the audience I write for the market is already iffy (as of now, at least, it’s usually cyclical so hopefully middle grade makes a comeback in a few years when my books are more polished and my skills themselves are more refined), I don’t have a ton of marketing skills as of now, and i’d really rather just work towards trad pub
also true. very true. it seems obvious but I still need to hear it sometimes, thank you
this guy graduated from Stanford, Harvard, and Penn though, so that’s why I was a bit startled by this. he’d made the point that (and I quote) “writing a book is a short-term thing, you just write and publish it, whereas passion projects are ongoing…and you don’t even have to be passionate about them”. now that I think of it, I feel like my experience as an aspiring author has actually fit more of the ongoing category though, so that’s good
Hello from UVA! I usually stick to our little sub here, but I did a search and found this thread.
First of all, there are lots of people on tiktok who claim to have credentials and give admission advice. Take their advice with a grain of salt.
It’s wonderful that you’re writing. You don’t have to published (indie, trad, or otherwise) to claim the title of writer. I think you’ve already figured out how you’d describe this in the limited space of an activity sheet.
At my school, we don’t value certain kinds of activities more than others. The activity sheet is to see how the student spends their time when they aren’t in class. If you have something to put down, you did it “right.”
~AO hat off~
BTW, there are agents/imprints that have scooped up popular self-published authors (Andy Weir, Olivia Blake, Rebecca Thorne, SenLinYu…the list goes on). I’m not saying you should rush over to KDP or IngramSpark. Do what’s right for you, but don’t stop yourself from putting something out in to the world if you want to share it.
There’s an old saying “paper doesn’t refuse ink.” Anyone can say they have credentials on the internet. That tiktok person has zero data to back up their claims because they are making things up. We have never, ever pushed for “passion projects.” Block and move on!
yeah, i’d supposed he was legit because of a large following + website, but the website was advertising a service for help on college apps, so i see how the incentive to lie would be there.
