Originally published on Forbes.
It’s no longer a secret that what students do outside of the classroom is just as important (if not more) as what they do inside of the classroom when it comes to college admissions. Ivy League and other top schools are inundated with applicants with 4.0 GPAs and transcripts full of AP and Honors classes. Often, the differentiating factor in these highly qualified applicant pools is how students have gone above and beyond in their free time—and one of the best ways to demonstrate this is through a passion project.
As passion projects have become more ubiquitous, their impact has been called into question. Some in the college consulting sector have discredited their value in the admissions process, arguing that they are merely flashy status symbols rather than meaningful demonstrations of students’ interests. Yet these criticisms do not prove that independent initiatives and projects are unimportant so much as they reflect widespread misconceptions around what colleges are looking for in student projects. While passion projects remain critical for admission to top universities, a poorly executed, parent-directed, or pay-to-play project could indeed hurt a student’s chances rather than help them. Before students embark on developing a passion project, they should understand what colleges truly want to see in their independent initiatives—and what red flags will definitely turn them off.
What is a passion project?
Over the last decade, independent projects (or passion projects) have become a staple of competitive college admissions profiles. The term is used to describe a wide array of activities, ranging from small-scale community initiatives to revenue-generating businesses and nonprofits with global reach.
In short, passion projects are student-led initiatives through which students pursue their core interests in hands-on ways outside of a formal learning environment. Rather than scale, a passion project is all about authenticity; it is an opportunity for students to tangibly demonstrate their interests to colleges through meaningful action, typically outside of school. When executed properly, passion projects can provide the anchoring narrative for the rest of a student’s application and show colleges that they will use their learning for good in their communities.
Do Ivy League admissions officers really care about independent projects?
Admissions officers at Ivy League and other top colleges do care about passion projects—but not in the way that most students and parents think.
As more students embark on passion projects, competitive applicants and their families often assume that colleges want to see more. Many believe that top schools are looking for teenage CEOs or founders of international NGOs. But nothing could be further from the truth. Colleges understand that high school students have limited resources, time, and expertise. When a student relies on their parents’ money or connections to create a sprawling project with global reach, the inauthenticity is evident to admissions officers.
Instead of thinking about “passion projects” as structured, programmed, or large-scale endeavors with national or global reach, students and families should regard them as independent initiatives that impact a student’s immediate community. Colleges want to see that a student has utilized the limited resources at their disposal in creative and original ways aligned with their core passions and interests. They want to admit students who are junior experts in their field, not those who are posing as global tycoons or international leaders.
Independent projects are valuable in the admissions process because they show a student’s motivation to learn outside of the classroom, commitment to benefiting those around them, and ability to develop hands-on skills in their field. This means that the best independent projects often happen in a student’s backyard. Rather than trying to ideate a project on a global scale, students should begin by addressing a problem in their community. A student interested in sustainability might come up with solutions for low participation in recycling programs; a student passionate about storytelling might create a digital archive of oral histories from community members. A student fascinated by urban planning might map walkability and accessibility in their neighborhood.
The particular issue a student chooses to address can demonstrate not only their ingenuity and the creative approaches they bring to their field of study, but also how their background has shaped their perspective. Rather than trying to impress admissions officers through the sheer scale of a project, students should strive to provide unique insights into their story through their project’s specificity and particularity. Students embarking on the project should ask themselves: What is a problem I am uniquely equipped to solve? How can I leverage my knowledge of my school, town, or region to address it? In what ways can I mobilize the communities that are important to me in order to affect positive change?
Admissions officers read thousands of applications every admissions cycle, the majority of which will include some variation of an independent project—and they can sense inauthenticity a mile away. Independent projects remain the cornerstone of any successful application, but only if they reflect genuine passion, not prestige, connections, wealth, or parental direction.
