There is comfort in following what looks like a formula that helped someone else succeed. In college admissions, it is tempting to imitate what someone else did because that someone else got admitted to Princeton, Harvard and Stanford. But this is unlikely to be a winning formula for you.

The highly selective colleges want applicants who stand out from the crowd and who demonstrate a combination of qualities that the colleges want.

Following one aspect of what someone else did, without understanding why they did it is a bad idea.

For example, the student who gained admission to 3 Ivy League colleges loves developing simple gaming apps. To enhance her coding skills, she decided to attend a coding bootcamp over the summer between sophomore and junior year so that she could create more complex mobile games. After the bootcamp, she succeeded in creating a mobile game that got downloaded several hundred thousand times over 3 months. This was a huge accomplishment for her and a demonstration of her passion, entrepreneurial spirit, creativity and grit.

But what the parents at her school talked about was the fact that she attended a coding bootcamp, without connecting it to her game creation success. Sending their children to coding bootcamp was easy to imitate, but unless their kids were interested in developing apps or other software, attending coding bootcamp had no purpose for their kids.

Read Avoid activities that will not impress admissions officers

When you follow what someone else did, you are not tapping into your own passion, and it will end up very hard for you to demonstrate your passion to the college. When you follow someone else’s actions, you are not being authentic, and you may find yourself stalled in ideas on how to move your activity forward. It is important to be original and true to yourself otherwise it will be hard to enjoy your activity and stand out with it.

Admitted students possess the qualities top colleges value!

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