First, we need to understand what it is like to be an admissions officer.

A mere 20 years ago, admission officers read 10-25 applications per day. But today, they scan 40-60 per day. 

On average, they spend 8 minutes per application trying to glean information quickly. 

If you depend on the admissions officer connecting the dots in your application, you're going to lose. 

They are simply too overwhelmed and exhausted to do so.  

So, your application must be as CLEAR as day. 

You want to explain clearly who you are and how you fit into this rich, diverse class of applicants. You want to clearly show what your values are and the impact you will have on that class. 

If you confuse, you lose.

How do you make yourself memorable? Isn’t that the same as being impressive?

If you think you make yourself memorable by doing everything better than anyone else, you’re wrong.  

For example, you're taking 12 APs or you're an active student body president. That's impressive. 

You put in a lot of effort. But that's not memorable. 

Even if you're slightly better than everyone else, your name and application will be lost in the shuffle.

Let's have specific examples. 

Meet John.

In addition to getting great grades and test scores, he is the first chair violinist in the school orchestra and takes weekly classes to become proficient in photography. 

Which one of these would be more impressive to you if you were the admissions officer? 

John’s activities might have taken more effort than Jordan’s, yet everyone always chooses Jordan. 

Let’s do another example.

Meet Sharon.

She has won multiple medals in math and science olympiads throughout middle school and high school. She has also been an active member of the student council for three years.

Meet Ishita.

She partnered with professors and professionals to spearhead efforts that changed national laws around food waste (which has a massive environmental cost).

Once again, which person would you say is more memorable? 

It’s "Ishita."

And now that we have learned about Iris’ situation from the case study earlier, let’s look at that too:

Meet Ivy.

In addition to great grades and test scores, Ivy was a varsity athlete, a strong musician, and active in multiple clubs and student government.

Meet Iris.

In addition to great grades and test scores, Iris wrote and published a gender-neutral economics textbook that was adopted in several middle schools in her area as part of her effort to remove inequity in her community.

Why is it so obvious which one would be more impressive?

The bottom line is that there's a mysterious element to it.  When the admissions officer gets to this part of the application and says, "Wait, what? How did they do that?" 

Although being first chair in the orchestra or the captain of the football team is very difficult, there's no question about how you did it. 

The admissions officer knows that it's impressive. 

But it's boring, too, because there's no mystery to it. 

Someone's got to be first chair… every team needs a captain…