by Valerie Erde

As an ACT/SAT/AP tutor and college essay advisor who has worked with dozens of families over the past several years, I often hear from parents who are very concerned about their children getting into top colleges. This is natural — we all want what's best for our children, and we know that a high-quality education plays an important role in their future success. I've been through the college application process with my own two children, and I know just how intense that can be.

But all too often, parents of eighth and ninth graders - or even of younger children - want to talk to me about their kids' resumes e.g. “Will ______ (debate team, lacrosse, violin, service trip to Haiti, 8 APs, etc, etc. ) look good on my child’s resume?” They’re often thinking about the what’s rather than the why’s and the how’s.

This is a mistake.

First of all, 13- and 14-year-olds aren’t ready to have resumes, and second, focusing on the resume first is backwards. Instead, you want to guide and support your children in building personal attributes first; the rest will follow naturally as your children develop their intellect, skills, and talents and discover who they are.

I found myself advising parents to "build a person, not a resume" so often that I trademarked the phrase (which is why you see that cute TM symbol in the title of this post). It's important for you to allow your kids to grow and mature into unique individuals, and you may be surprised to learn the colleges want to admit interesting, complex people over cookie-cutter box checkers.

A “Resume Builder” Approach Misses The Point

Because of the nature of U.S. college admissions - especially for selective schools - students do need to get good grades in challenging courses, have solid test scores, and demonstrate participation in activities and leadership roles during their high school years. We all know this, but I’ve noticed that some families try to push their children toward specific courses or activities that simply don’t fit or interest their child because they believe those things will “impress” admissions committees. The name for this behavior is resume building, and admissions officers can often (but not always) spot that. Resume building doesn’t make a student look dedicated. Instead, it may make a student appear scattered, inauthentic/shallow, or robotic.

In 2016, the New York Times interviewed college admissions officers at a variety of schools about how they’d advise their own kids. They found that admissions officers “encourage their teens to embrace activities and courses that reflect who they genuinely are, not who they think colleges want them to be.”

That’s not to say that I don’t believe in total adult absence from helping your child explore new interests and opportunities. In fact, sometimes teens are reluctant to try a class they will end up loving because they feel it will be “too hard” or, conversely, “too easy.” Or they may feel reluctant to attend a meeting for a club because they are shy/lack confidence or have rigid ideas about something being too“nerdy” or too “cool” for them. These are times when a student may be benefit from some adult prodding. I distinctly remember one of my own children initially pooh-poohing trying out Model U.N. Club for this reason: “I know who’s in it and I don’t think I’ll like those kids.” (Needless to say, it became a favorite activity.)

You Can’t “Game” A Changing Admissions Landscape

The problem with trying to “game” the admissions process, is that each college wants different things from their particular student body, and what that may mean changes from year to year. Because universities want great individuals as well as a great campus community, applications are considered on their own merit and in relation to other candidates.

In fact, some universities “have started to change the way they evaluate prospective students. There are new efforts to look at meaningful, real-life experiences rather than the usual laundry list of impressive extracurriculars and classes. These ideas are detailed in a college admissions campaign by Making Caring Common, a project emanating from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, that has been endorsed by 175 universities and colleges, including all of the Ivy League.”

Proponents of this approach are pushing colleges to clearly spell out what admissions teams value in prospective students. And this is starting to mean less “long brag sheets” and more meaningful activities, morality and character.

For instance, Making Caring Common recommends “less tallying of AP classes and more delving into intellectual subjects the student cares about; fewer volunteer trips to exotic locations and more sustained community service experiences over a long period of time; less polishing of the application by parents and paid coaches and more authenticity, integrity and confidence that can be seen through the student’s own voice.”

When University of California admissions professionals presented a conference to high school guidance counselors, they offered examples of effective personal statements. The best ones were those that connected to the student activities listed elsewhere on the application and explained why time spent doing these things mattered. Why would a busy young person spend so many hours on a musical instrument? What did he get out of his time in the orchestra? Just one or two activities that genuinely mattered to the student made a greater impact than a slew of casual encounters.

So while it's tempting to try and steer your child to cover certain bases on a resume, based on what you think a college wants, it's not actually very effective for college admissions — and it's certainly no way to help your child become an adult with unique passions and strong personal attributes that will ultimately appeal to colleges.

Building a Person, Not a Resume™ Is The Key

Volunteering, leadership positions, pushing oneself musically or athletically: These are all activities that build a person’s character. The trick is to let your child explore them naturally, as a genuine outgrowth of personal interests and abilities, rather than a mindset of “ticking off certain boxes.”

The reason for even participating in all these ‘resume-building’ activities in the first place - in addition to having fun - is to develop a range of personal attributes and character. So the primary goal for your child is to build skills and traits:

• Curiosity: to engage in lifelong learning 

• Work Ethic: to develop organizational and time management skills

• Resiliency: to take risks, face challenges, and recover from failures

• Empathy: to set a foundation for successful personal and professional relationships and ethical behavior

• Independence: to try new things and forge one's own path

• Passion: to develop interests that provide lifelong joy and challenge

These are the personal characteristics that will lead your student to academic and extra-curricular success. They'll end up with an amazing resume anyway — it's the byproduct of building a person, not the main goal in and of itself.

6 Tips to Help Focus on Building a Whole Person 

1. Read, Read, Read — It Doesn't Have to Be Long

One of my students recently said, “Yeah, I know, I should read more classics.” But "longer" and "older" aren't always synonymous with "better." Nobody has time for War and Peace, but all kids have time to read an article from a quality magazine or nationally recognized newspaper. The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Atlantic, and even Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair all publish excellent journalism on a wide range of subjects. Strong verbal skills are important for everyone, and the best way to build them is by reading challenging, interesting material every day.

2. Strike a Parenting Balance

In my experience, the most successful students aren't the ones with helicopter parents, nor completely laissez-faire ones, but who have parent with what’s referred to as an authoritative parenting style in which “the parents are nurturing, responsive, and supportive, yet set firm limits for their children. They attempt to guide behavior by explaining rules, discussing, and reasoning. They listen to a child's viewpoint but don't always accept it. Children raised with this style tend to be friendly, energetic, cheerful, self-reliant, self-controlled, curious, cooperative and achievement-oriented.” Your child may look and sound mature, but high schoolers still have developing, adolescent brains and all that entails. They need a balance of your guidance and a willingness to let them try things — and fail — on their own.

3. Seek Challenge, but Don't Overdo It

Make wise choices about classes. It's good to take challenging courses, but loading up on AP courses in subjects that you just aren't interested in may backfire. Likewise, it's important not to over-extend in either academics or extra-curriculars so there's still time to enjoy personal passions and the pleasures of friendships and family. And of course, you can’t cheat on sleep. Sleep, or its lack, affects physical and mental health as well as academic and athletic performance.

4. Get Extra Help If You Need It – and Sometimes When You Don’t

Recently a parent said to me, “It’s amazing how many parents will take off time from work to attend their kids’ concert or sports game, but won’t take the time to sit with them to help with homework or an essay." Your kids still need help, and probably more often than you realize. Making sure they get the support they need is critical to their success, whether it's from you, a teacher, or a tutor. There's no shame in seeking help, and it will also encourage students to get to know counselors teachers on a personal level — a crucial connection for future recommendation letters.

5. Give Your Child The Gift Of Saying “No”

In building these strengths, it's also important to accept that one can’t do everything. As your child grows and matures, she'll also learn that we all have to make choices about how to fill our time and what's truly worth committing to. That means sometimes you will be the one to say no, but you also want your child to learn the “art” of when and how to say “no” — sometimes saying “yes” to every club, social invite, sport….can be both counterproductive and draining.

6. Be You. Be Interesting. Be Extraordinary.

Not every passion is easily available within the traditional school system, and that's okay. Don’t be afraid to seek out interesting groups and follow unusual interests. Any interest can be developed somewhere. Some of my students who have gotten into top colleges didn’t do a ton of things; they did either a few things really deeply and well, or they pursued some really unique hobbies that made them stand out. 

And, contrary to popular belief, playing a sport is not a requirement to get into any top college or university.  One of my students, now an ivy-league sophomore, played no sport, but he was an avid bread baker and great writer, so he wrote a fascinating blog about the history of bread. He was also a very strong orchestral musician. But something that really came through in his college essays and supplements - beyond his clear intellect and talents - was what a thoughtful and caring person he is.

Succeed in College Admissions By Succeeding in Life!

I can't stress the importance of that last piece enough: He was also a good person. On the day that you drop your child off at college and head for home alone, that is what you will be most proud of — to have raised an amazing human being — to have built a person, not a resume.

Additional Resources

Turning the Tide: Inspiring Concern for Others and the Common Good through College Admissions, Harvard Graduate School of Education, 2016

For Families: Ethical Parenting In The College Admissions Process,

Doing It For The College Resume, U.S. News & World Report, 2018

Advice College Admissions Officers Give Their Own Kids, The New York Times, 2016.

Here is an interesting Reddit post by an accepted Stanford student that argues the opposite of what I say above - that you can “game” the system. There is some truth to that; sometimes engaging in an activity to check a box “works” and can be “undetectable” by admissions officers. But where I disagree is that some students can’t pull off this disingenuousness well (and hence can’t write about it well in their essays, nor discuss it well in an interview). Why not, instead, get involved in something that you enjoy and which will make you more engaged, and make it easy for you to show/tell that in your application?