8 Tips for the Activities Section

Hard to believe it, but it's just a few days until our application goes live on August 1st! Tulane offers students the opportunity to apply using our own application or using the Common Application. We've got no preference between the two, so it's totally up to you. We also believe in no barriers to apply; we're still one of the only schools in the top 50 with no application fee.

One part of the application that we take a good long look at is your activities section. Today's blog is going to address what makes a great (and not-so-great) extracurricular list. Here's the best advice I can give you: you don't need to be well rounded. Yes, I said it. As Director of Admission, it's not my job to only find well-rounded students. It's my job to build a well-rounded class of students. That means I need artists, musicians, soccer goalies, feminists, researchers, people passionate about community service, runningbacks and baristas. You don't have to be the Renaissance Man or Woman; you just have to have a few things that you love to do and are good at doing. We're looking for much more depth on your extracurriculars than we are breadth. In fact, we're kinda turned off when the resume is ten pages long (or every single box on the activities section is filled out) and we struggle to really get a sense of where your passions are and what you'll be involved in when you arrive on our campus in the fall. Take a look at my previous blog about what your overall resume and experiences in high school should generally look like.

Now, let's delve into my...

8 Tips for the Activities Section

Less is more. This applies directly to what I said above. You don't need to list every single time you walked around the park for a charity or the club you went to three times sophomore year. What we are looking for is the main points of passion. We don't need a laundry list. Nearly every student we admit to Tulane is in their school's National Honor Society, for example. It's just not needed to list each of these things out. We want the big picture stuff.

Avoid repetition of the same activity. From an admission perspective, we don't need to see soccer or trumpet written multiple times. While I know that club soccer outside of school is totally different from the varsity team at your school, my suggestion is to consolidate this into one activity on the list. Use the description to share all of the various ways you've been involved in soccer rather than spreading each one out, especially if you are also talking about this in your short answer.

Yes, we get it. You are a soccer player.

Put things in the proper order. The first activity should be your biggest, most passionate one that you committed the most time to. Then, "de-escalate" from there. Don't hide the most important ones at the bottom and remember that when we're flipping through tens of thousands of resumes and activities lists, you want to grab our attention from the start. You know how we want you want to hook us in with that first sentence of your essay? Same thing here.

Don't wait until the end to tell me the stuff you are awesome at! No one gets admitted to college based on those first three.

Don't overdo the service trips and travel. We know there are some amazing service trips and programs all around the world. For a school ranked #1 for students most involved in community service, we absolutely value the time you've spent involved in service. But if we get a resume packed with trips to Fiji, it can come across as privileged. Again, I think there is value in these trips, but I also think there is value in a service project or job in your own backyard.

Get a job and tell us about it. Speaking of the above, we love a job here at Tulane. In an era when fewer and fewer teenagers are holding summer jobs, we're now at the point were an old fashioned summer job is something that can truly make you stand out in this process. Last month at a smoothie shop in Los Angeles, I told my high school-aged smoothie maker how proud of her I was for spending her summer working part-time. She looked at me like I was crazy, but hey, maybe she'll apply to Tulane this fall. We think jobs teach time management, responsibility and great communication skills. It might even be at the top of your activities list if you've committed that much to it.

Be specific. This is a tip that you'll get when you create an actual resume as you apply to jobs in the real world. Use data, numbers, and anything that I can cling on to and share with the admission committee when I go up to bat for you. It's much easier for me to say "this student increased membership in his school's Queer Student Alliance by 100 students" over "this student made the QSA more popular."

Don't overlook what you think might be mundane. There are things you might not consider as traditional extracurricular activities that we on the admission committee might find quite interesting. I had a kid collect coins from around the world by scouring various antique shops with his grandfather. You might not think your quirky hobbies are activity-list-worthy, but sometimes it's those things that make you stand out the most in this section.

Avoid abbreviations. This one's a quick one, but spell it out for us and assume that we know nothing about what goes on in high school clubs these days.

There you have it! Now get to work on crafting that dynamite activities section. Happy applying!

WHAT NOT TO DO: What is ACAM? What did you do at Meals on Wheels? And why downplay that awesome job?

WHAT YOU SHOULD DO: Ah, good. No abbreviations. Specifics on the Meals on Wheels. And you didn't sell yourself short on how important being a busboy is! 

Summer Reading

One of the tips I give high school juniors and seniors is pretty straightforward: read good books. Books are great conversation starters and might even help you as you start to think about college, what schools you might fit in at, and what to write about for your application personal statement. Plus, one of my favorite questions to ask prospective students is "what was the last good book you read?" With our alumni interview program kicking off this fall, I am not saying that this will be a question you'll be asked, but I am also not, not saying it...

Since it's July, which means prime beach reading season, I surveyed my colleagues here in the Office of Admission to get a list of books you might particularly enjoy. Grab your Kindle or head over to your local bookstore and check out these picks for your summer reading list:


Me: Ten Percent Happier by Dan Harris
"I've posted before that even Directors of Admission get anxiety and while I am no expert on the topic, I know there are certain things that we can do to de-stress and calm that incessant inner monologue. As you embark on what is sure to be a stress-inducing time in your life, you'll find Dan Harris' book to be tremendously helpful. Harris is famous for having an on-air anxiety attack on the set of Good Morning America. The book follows his journey from a skeptic (the way most of us feel about meditation) to believer. He calls meditation a superpower and after reading this book and practicing it myself, I fully and wholeheartedly agree."


Jill (Assistant Director for Transfer Recruitment): Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
"Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize. This fictional novel follows a young woman named Cora through her escape from a cotton plantation in Georgia. Cora encounters different worlds and people at every stage of her journey and the language and detail by Whitehead keep you engrossed and invested the entire time. The story doesn’t seem to get easier for Cora, but at every turn, you are rooting for this heroine as she finds her way to freedom.
In other words, she’s a true badass."

Paul (Director of International Admission): Secret River by Kate Grenville
"This historical novel covers topics from colonization and race to immigration and the clash of civilizations through the lens of the settling of Australia. While offering insight to the early British development of Australia and the penal colony system, this novel also gives an alternative account of a period of history not largely understood by those of us who grew up in America."

Toni (Diversity Recruitment Coordinator): Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates 
"Inspired by James Baldwin’s 1963 classic, The Fire Next Time, Between the World and Me is written as a letter from author Ta-Nehisi Coates to his teenaged son. Coates covers topics such as the social, economic and historical context for the stigma and fear that surround the black community and young black men in particular in contemporary America. Coates frames his letter as he recounts his own story of growing up black and being influenced by his teachers and the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. Coates also references American slavery, which he parallels with his son's recent experiences with the deaths of young black men in America (Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin and Jorden Davis). Coates uses these poignant recent tragedies as a guiding light that has illuminated the dangers of being a young, black male in America. Overall, the book offers a powerful framework to understand contemporary race relations in America and helps lay bare the larger underlying issues of modern movements including police brutality and Black Lives Matter."

Between the World and Me is this summer's reading project for the class of 2021.

Becca (Admission Counselor for Arts and Architecture Students): Into the Water by Paula Hawkins
"My personal favorite time to read any kind of thriller or mystery novel is during the summer when the days are long and lazy. Each chapter of this novel switches off between characters all living in a small town where numerous women over hundreds of years have died in the central river’s “drowning pool”. Each person’s perspective reveals a new, and often contradictory clue that will keep you turning the pages long into the night. Hawkins is the author of The Girl on the Train, another amazing thriller."

Henry (Admission Counselor): Fire Shut Up In My Bones by Charles Blow

"I highly recommend Fire Shut Up In My Bones by Charles Blow, an op-ed columnist for The New York Times. Blow’s memoir details his upbringing in rural, north Louisiana. Blow dives deep into the poverty and turbulent family life he experienced as a child, the African-American experience in The South, and his struggles with his sexual identity. This book provides beautiful and poignant insights into a slice of life in our country that is often overlooked."

Rachel (Admission Counselor): Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

"Trevor Noah, host of The Daily Show, grew up in South Africa as apartheid was ending and his autobiography delves into his upbringing during these tumultuous times. The book details his struggles with his racial identity and family dynamic through stories that are both informative and comical. Trevor has such a unique and difficult story to tell, but an incredibly important one to hear—it is sure to put things in perspective for you. Of course, this one has a special place in my heart since I studied abroad in South Africa when I was a student at Tulane!" 

Owen (Admission Counselor): A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson 

"This is Bill Bryson’s memoir of his travels on the Appalachian Trail with his friend. It weaves in history, personal stories, and anecdotes from the trek in his hilarious writing style. It is certainly more than just a travel book, but it has always inspired some wanderlust for me and reminds me of the beauty of a simple trip through nature. To top it all off, Bryson’s companion is the “gloriously out of shape” Stephen Katz, who is an endless supply of funny moments. They made this book into a movie starring Robert Redford a couple years ago. I’ve heard it wasn’t particularly good, but don’t let a bad adaption turn you off from a great read!"

Admission Pet Peeves

A few years back, U.S. News ran a story about admission representatives' pet peeves during the college admission process. U.S. News was nice enough to quote me in the article. Overall, the admission process goes smoothly for admission representatives and students alike, but every so often, something happens that just really annoys me. So I filled in U.S. News about something that happens more than you think: when students email me, but use the wrong school name.

The article got me thinking that there are indeed a few more things that tend to get on my nerves during the admission process. Keep in mind, 99.9% of what happens in college admission is annoyance-free. And we, as admission representatives, also understand that this is a stressful time for you as well. So, I figured it may be helpful for you high school juniors and seniors (and your parents) out there to know of a few things that us folks on our side of the desk consider to be admission pet peeves. Now, if happen to be guilty of doing any of these things in the past, don't fret, these are not make or break. But, since you'll always want to put your best foot forward in the world of college admission, I figured it can only help you (and all my colleagues) if you avoid asking like the following people.

1) The Vague Email Question Asker: Admission representatives can get upwards of a thousand emails a week. It's a part of our job, and for us, we really enjoy it. I like communicating with students, helping them plan their visits to Tulane, and answering their questions. However, if there is one type of email that can be a little frustrating for us, it is when prospective students email us very open-ended and vague questions like: "Dear Mr. Schiffman, Can you tell me what it's like to be a student at Tulane?" [it's great!] and "Dear Jeff, What is Tulane looking for in an applicant?" [well rounded!] and "Dear Mr. Schiffman, What is New Orleans like?" [it's funky!] These are the type of questions that, while great and well intended, are probably best asked in person or over the phone. When we have to sit down and type out what the campus is like, it's really too broad of a question for us to answer well, and also takes us a long time to give an answer that does our campus justice. Don't be afraid to pick up the phone and call schools to ask these broad questions, or do some research online, or chat with our current students (which you can do online every day from 3-5 CST!). I would much rather answer questions that are specific and well-researched. Trust me on this one, it makes admission representatives lives a lot easier. For more on this, check out my five emails you should never send post as well as questions to never ask your admission rep.

2) The Let-Mom-Take-Over-the-Meeting Student: We love meeting with students on campus. But there is nothing more disheartening when a student arrives in my office and speaks a few welcoming words before mom or dad takes over with their laundry lists of questions. Because we don't offer formal interviews with the admission staff here at Tulane, we totally welcome your mom or dad to come into our office during your chat with your admission rep. But if they are going to dominate the conversation and won't allow you a word in edgewise, then let them stay in the waiting room and come in towards the end of your discussion. I once had a student come into my office with her mom, made no eye contact with me the whole time, and on her mother's twelfth question, the daughter actually began texting on her phone. In my office! No thanks. Best overall advice I can give here is; parents, you do not want to be more memorable than your students in this process.

Side note, we're super excited to launch our new alumni interview program for our EA/ED applicants this fall!

3) The Best Kid in the World- This goes along with #2 above. Mom and dad, I know you are going to have a tough time holding back these words, but I can tell you that every parent thinks their kid is really special. I can count on seventeen hands the number of times I had an overanxious mom or dad say this to me. Even if you start the my-kid-is-special sentence with "I know that all parents will say this to you, but..." it still seems unrealistic to us. Also, mom and dad, "we" are not taking AP Calculus. "We" are not taking the SATs in November. They are. Avoid this word. I know you are partners in this process, but let your kid be themselves. Let them show their specialness on their own.

4) The Leader On-er: This is the peeve I was quoted about in U.S. News. I had a student contact me all year long last year. They were a decent applicant, had expressed a lot of interest, and had really let me know that Tulane was their top choice. However, when they were added to our waitlist, I got a full page email from them indicating how badly they wanted to attend [insert school here that is not Tulane]. I was all set to bring the applicant to my VP and say how I wanted to support the candidate, but this really took the wind out of my sails. So, make sure you are being honest—don't lead admission officers on. Never cut and paste an email from another school or make the fatal error of writing the wrong school. This happens much more often than you would expect. If you are expressing interest in a school, have it be genuine engagement rather than forced or feigned interest.

5) The Twelve Page Resume-Sender: I have spoken on this topic before. It won't do you much good to send us an extremely lengthy resume about every single bake sale you have ever worked. The best resumes we get are contained on a single piece of page. They highlight the three or four major priorities and passions that you have and succiently describe them. Sending 44 pages of photocopies of every award you have won (true story) is similar to this. Same with filling out every single blank on the activities section of the Common App. I am 33 years old... your resume shouldn't be longer than mine is! More tips on great resumes are on my previous blog here.

We know that you all are about to start working hard to get these applications out and we know that this might be a pretty stressful time for you and your family. I hope these little tips are able to help you a bit, and of course selfishly, following many of them will make your admission representative's life just a little bit easier.

For the full article from U.S. News, you can click here to see what other admission representatives claim their pet peeves to be.