Independent Activities that Help You Stand Out
There are no constraints on what types of independent activities a high school student can pursue so they should let their genuine interests and passions guide them. From food blogging to giving beauty tips on TikTok to being an e-sports champion, these are all activities that when pursued with passion can help a student stand out and demonstrate leadership, initiative, excellence, grit and other qualities valued by the highly selective colleges.
Imagination, passion and a willingness to step out of their comfort zone are key drivers of high school students’ ability to pursue independent activities that help them stand out from the crowd. The willingness to engage in activity on an experimental basis to see if the student has a genuine interest in it is a critical part of discovering passion for something.
For some students, their passions run deep for an activity, and they do not need much encouragement to get going doing what they love.
For other students, exploration and discussion is essential to helping them discover their passion. Do not fret if your high school freshman is unable to identify a burning passion to create a newsletter that informs about the latest drop on fashion sneakers or to create a website to showcase their gift for photography. They can find their passion through trial and error.
For many students, identifying a passion will only happen sometime in sophomore year or the beginning of junior year in high school when they have had a chance to experiment with many different activities. This leaves enough time to develop that passion and show impact before that Common Application is due in November or January of senior year.
How to discover your passion
If you are struggling to identify a genuine passion, then the first thing to do is for you to create a list of everything you have done since elementary school. Nothing is too small and nothing is too crazy. Write it all down. Then create a second list with everything you would like to do, and again nothing is too small or too crazy.
Then go through each list, and evaluate each activity for the following:
did you enjoy doing it?
would you like to do it again?
if you answered “yes” to the previous question, then write down the reason why you would do it again? If you answered “no”, then move on to the next activity
is the reason why you want to do it again sustainable, and can transform into a more regular activity for the next few years?
if the answer is “yes”, are you excited at the prospect of engaging in the activity
if you are excited, then start with a plan and timeline to make it happen, and write down the 3 main goals you have for the activity
assess the resources you need to engage in the activity. Will you have those resources to start and keep it going?
what metric will you use to demonstrate impact on others from your activity?
what qualities about you will the activity demonstrate?
Remember that you can develop a passion for the activity as you become more engaged with it and have an impact on yourself and others. Do not settle on an activity that you undertake mechanically in the hope of standing out in your college application. This will not work.
Pursuing academic passion
For some students, passion lies in an academic subject, whether it is science, math or humanities related. The independent pursuit of an area of academic passion can lead to research internships at top colleges as well as to the receipt of grants for conducting research.
To get started, you should be very clear with yourself about what is the specific area of, for example, computer science that interests you. Is it cybersecurity? Or is it the use of artificial intelligence? Or something else?
Another student’s passion may be in history, and specifically in colonial history in Africa, for example.
Once you identify an area of academic passion, you must drill down to a defined scope of interest in which you want to pursue your research. At this point, you should look for the experts in the field in which you want to conduct your research and reach out to them for guidance. The establishment of rapport with one or more of these experts, whether they are in academia, in the non-profit world or in the business world will not only help you elevate your level of research, it can lead to your ultimate goal of being appointed as a research assistant. An appointment as a research assistant to a recognized expert in their field confers prestige and will make you stand out in your college application.
There is also the possibility of conducting your own independent research and submitting your findings and report to the experts. You may gain substantial recognition this way, but it is a riskier path to take since you may not find traction with the experts at all.
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