Why do colleges want pointy (not well-rounded) students?

"At Stanford, when reading applications, we did use one acronym in particular—SP ("standard positive"), which indicated that the student was solid and had an overall positive application, but unfortunately was just standard."—Anonymous, Former Admissions Reader, Stanford University

It’s sometimes said that college admissions officers prefer pointy students to round students, and that the job of a college admissions department is to attract a well-rounded class, not well-rounded students. In the increasingly competitive college admissions world high school students cannot afford to pursue broad and haphazard extracurricular choices that would have looked solid on an application a decade ago. We all know that it’s harder than ever to be admitted to a top U.S. college. But what does this mean in practice for teens who want to be strategic about the choices they make in high school to maximize benefit for college admissions purposes? 

Compare the extracurricular options at most American high schools and you’ll see a lot of overlap: student government, school newspaper, debate, Model UN, math club, environmental club, Science Olympiad.... There’s not a lot of variety, and there’s also not a lot of depth. This has some pretty significant consequences for teens applying to college. First, students that limit themselves to activities within their schools can end up looking a lot like every other applicant. Second, at most schools, it’s hard for students to pursue more than a small handful of activities that fit into a common theme. For example, a student with a stated interest in science may have trouble finding enough extracurriculars within the school to significantly expand or deepen this interest beyond the classroom. This makes it difficult for a teen to develop the “pointy-ness” that competitive schools say they want. 

To make things even more challenging, it’s hard for most of us to get a clear view into the minds of elite college admissions officers. Admissions departments tend to be pretty tight-lipped about the specifics of how and why they favor one candidate over another. They’re also reluctant to suggest that there might be a formula for creating an admissions profile that will help a teen compare favorably to the competition. And this is precisely why wealthy families are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars to pricey private admissions consultants, many of whom were themselves admissions officers at top schools.

But what generalizations can we extract? First, if you are applying to a highly selective college it is not enough to have excellent grades, top board scores and a smattering of random extracurriculars. Thanks to the Common Application, the number of applicants to many schools has exploded in the last decade. This has driven acceptances to historical lows, with admittance rates in the 5-8% range at some colleges. Even if you are the class valedictorian, you are going to have trouble standing out if your only extracurriculars are sports, student government and a couple of clubs. Relatedly, you’re also not going to stand out even if you participate in every extracurricular offered at your school unless your extracurriculars fit into an identifiable theme that unites your stated (and demonstrated) academic strengths with many of your extracurricular choices. This is what gives your application depth, and makes you pointy. We call this a “narrative arc”.

Let’s consider a straightforward example of a student with an obvious narrative arc. Candidate A has top grades and board scores, and a stated interest in history and political science. Candidate A is the Vice President of his class, and the co-captain of the school debate team (four year participant). Candidate A also covers national politics for the school newspaper (on staff for four years), writing between 6-8 thoughtful articles per year. For a summer job, Candidate A volunteered in the campaign office of one of the candidates for county commissioner. Candidate A’s extracurriculars follow a readily identifiable theme, and indicate some depth and breadth of interest. Objectively speaking, Candidate A is a pretty strong contender for a spot at a selective college.

How could we make Candidate A even pointier (and thus even more appealing)? In lieu of traditional community service, Candidate A might pursue a self-led community-based “impact project”. For example, Candidate A could convene a Youth Town Hall bringing together community leaders and teens for a constructive conversation about the issues that matter to young people in the area. Such an undertaking would require Candidate A to contact, coordinate and communicate with local leaders. It would also require him to secure a venue and advertise the event, including by ensuring adequate attendance to make the event productive. Candidate A could commission a survey of local teens in advance, and use the answers to generate questions and topics to raise at the event. Done properly, this experience could be challenging and interesting for Candidate A, and beneficial to the town. As a bonus, Candidate A could ask the town leaders involved for letters of reference to include in his college applications. With this small tweak, Candidate A has taken his college application from good to great. He is now a very pointy choice for a college admissions officer. Candidate A also has something really interesting, unique and different to talk about in his admissions essays.

Candidate A is a hypothetical teen, but his “pointy-ness”is readily achievable with a little forethought and planning. Beginning early in high school, we should encourage teens to think about their academic interests and strengths and then suggest that they pursue extracurriculars that accentuate these strengths and interests and are thematically consistent with one another. It’s helpful for these activities to include some organizations, competitions and clubs that are unique and unlikely to be offered at most American high schools. Finally, ideally, a student’s narrative arc of extracurriculars and interests should include or even culminate in a self-led, community-based impact project (see, for example, the Youth Town Hall).

Strategic planning like this does not lock a teen into a prescribed study or career path. But it does enable him to explore and expand his interests in greater depth and to demonstrate to a college admissions officer that he is capable of “picking and sticking”. Length of participation (in years) and the number of hours committed per year is also highly correlated with the proportional benefit that an activity serves for college admissions purposes. In addition, repeated participation in an activity of interest can often lead to positive and insightful references from teachers or other adult mentors.

Many rational people experience viscerally negative reactions when reading the above. Should high school really be about nothing other than building an appealing resume for college admissions? Of course not! And there is a silver lining: teens are more likely to get more out of their extracurriculars when they pursue activities that align with their academic interests and strengths. A teen that spends three or four years participating in an extracurricular has a much higher likelihood of moving into a leadership or mentoring role within that club or organization than one who participates for only a short period of time. As for the community-based impact project, enormous intellectual and personal benefits flow from teen-directed community-based activities. Arguably, an impact project like the Youth Town Hall can do more than traditional school work to help a teen develop skills (like communication, collaboration and critical thinking) that he needs to be successful in college and the workplace.

Finally, in defense of colleges looking for a bunch of pointy students, there’s something to be said for filling your ranks with teens that have demonstrated an ability to go deep. Colleges want to know what you’re going to bring to their community. This is a very hard question for a teen to answer unless he’s already done something to bring positive change to his home community. Teens should absolutely experiment with new clubs and classes, play sports and save time for their friends. But there’s something to be said for taking a thoughtful approach to choosing extracurriculars. And the inconvenience of starting to plan early in high school is well worth avoiding the pain of ending up in 12th grade looking more like an eraser than a pencil.