Getting into top ranked universities is dream of many students. Strong profile is required to get admission into competitive top colleges. There need to conscious planning, strategy to build profile around students’ strengths and passion so that best fit college can give admission in the high level of competition. Here we will discuss how to build strong profile for college admission.
Well-rounded class:
Colleges are building well rounded class but not by well rounded students. Colleges want top students in different fields so that they can build a diverse class and students can learn from each other. Only top academic achievers they don’t want but they like students who are top in different fields and can bring different views, angles into the class.
What is profile?
A profile is overall personality of student consisting of academic achievements, extracurricular activities, leadership positions, volunteering work etc. college look for students who are committed and making best of the resources available so that when students will be on their campus they utilise resources on campus to learn, share, work in teams, participate and contribute in class discussions etc.
Holistic Review:
College admission committee while taking decision of admission on any candidate they look at overall personality of the student. Decisions are not solely based on any one side of the applicant. A holistic review is taken.
Strong Academic credentials:
Universities are academic institutes and students are going there for study. Many times, the course structure is very rigorous and needs student to work hard and learn. It requires hard work to pass a class and to score high GPA.
Student should not struggle with the strong academic rigor and the pace of the syllabus of courses. Colleges want to know whether the students are ready and prepared enough to handle the rigorous course load and complete the degree in time limit.
Academic credentials can be maintained high by
- Get good grades in class 9 to grade 12 high school exams.
- Taking challenging subjects like Mathematics, Physics, Computer etc.
- Taking Advance Placement Exams and scoring 5 in them.
- High performance in Academic competitions etc.
- Score high on standardised tests like SAT or ACT.
Extra-curricular Activities:
This plays very important role in looking at your profile. Colleges want to know what students are doing outside the class room. What the student is passionate about, how they spend their time and how they are utilizing the resources available to them. Students should join clubs and organizations.
Students can showcase their strength, unique traits, values by actively participating into extra-curricular activities.
Leadership positions:
Students should try to get leadership positions wherever possible in school clubs and organisations. School Head boy or head girl has much weightage in admissions.
Community service and Volunteer work:
Try to do volunteer work in your near by area. Find out NGO in your city and try to help poor and orphans to help them in whatever way possible to you. Many students do fund raising.
Pursuing Passion:
Student should pursue his passion in any field he likes. Try to have impact of their passion in other people’s life.
Research work:
College professors do research work and they like students doing research. Try to do some research work in a field of your interest.
Project work:
Try to apply your knowledge learned and make a project which will impact and help as many people’s life as possible.
Sports and Athletics:
Students can participate in inter school, state level, national level sports competitions and achievements in high level competitions will give added consideration in admission decisions.
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Conclusion:
Strong profile is must for getting admission into competitive top colleges. There are no fixed rules or measurements to evaluate student profile. Each student is different Profile is not built in a month or few days, it need to be built by conscious efforts over the entire four years of high school. The important thing about profile is that it should not be only for the sake of profile. Admission officers have years of experience and they can easily recognize whether student has really passionate about it or doing it just for adding one activity on list. It should what student really likes and how much impact students can make in that particular activity.