We start with the four most important concepts you need to guide your college process by reading through my Cornell application:

1. intellectual vitality: the biggest misconception about college essays is that you need to write about personal experiences. admissions officers are skeptical talent scouts for professors looking for scholars with a genuine love of learning. since many of us haven't experienced extraordinary personal circumstances, differentiate yourself intellectually instead by tying a personal experience to a philosophical theory you want to study, writing about your favorite painting, or finding a connection between socialism and the social organization of ant colonies.

2. points of excellence: develop one unusual skill or interest to an exceptional degree so your admissions officer can pitch you with a memorable one-liner in committee: don’t be the student who cares about climate change. be the environmental inventor passionate about using biomimicry and geospatial technologies to improve environmental justice in rural and low-income communities.

3. texture: contrary to the advice of “just being yourself”, your personality needs to pop off the page through humor, intellectual humility, and self-deprecation by pointing out your flaws, using understatement, and letting recommenders brag about you to show you're an honest and authentic individual.

4. fit: highlight one specific aspect of your interests that shows alignment between your identity and the school by articulating how you'd benefit from attending and use their resources to contribute to their school beyond name-dropping courses and professors.

We focus on maybe the most important document in your application: the activities page. This might be the single best way to stand out from other applicants because most students don’t take the time to write carefully about their activities. Their title and descriptions are sloppy, verbose, and usually lack context. For most readers, this is the first time they will encounter your writing. So we want to showcase your intellectual vitality, make your point of excellence clear, and add texture by crafting smart, fun, interesting descriptions.

But what if you don't have ten activities? What if you have more than ten? How should you order them? What if you haven't done an activity yet or you just started it? How do you make that tricky calculation about time spent on an activity? How much does that matter?