Applying to college can be unnerving. Demands on high school students grow every year, admissions counselors look for excellence and personality in prospective students, and applicants just have a few sheets of paper-applications, resumes and maybe an essay-to put their best foot forward in the application process.

You might think that resumes are just for job applications and internships, but they can also play a key role in the college admissions process, highlighting your experience in a way that an admissions form can’t.

So how can you make your application stand out? Here are a few surefire tips to ramp up your application and impress admissions counselors.

1. Be Choosy

Do your research before you decide which schools will receive your applications. Find out what potential colleges specialize in and how you can get involved. Don’t apply unless a school fits your lifestyle and goals.

When you submit your applications and/or essays to admissions, mention what you like about that school and the ways you believe it will be a perfect fit for you. If you’re struggling to come up with good reasons to go, that school might not be the best match for you. Once you’ve figured out where you want to go and why, having those reasons clearly defined will shine through in your application.

2. Let Your Personality Shine

When a university like Princeton receives tens of thousands of applications from students who all made perfect grades through high school, they have to narrow their choices somehow. As a matter of fact, admissions counselors say that perfect grades don’t guarantee you a spot… anywhere. Admissions offices are looking for more than that.

This is where your extracurriculars, life experience and even personality come into play. Admissions counselors say they want to get a peek at the person, beyond just a stack of impressive papers. Keep it professional during the application process, but don’t be afraid to be yourself.

3. Go On a Trip

One of the best ways to add weight to your resume is to participate in an exchange program or in an overseas pre college summer program. Universities know that well-traveled students have a more developed outlook on life, and tend to be more culturally savvy than students who haven’t ever stepped outside their comfort zones.

Participating in a high school volunteer abroad program is one way to get this type of experience; GLA offers a wide variety of programs that can give you language practice, environment and ecology experience and a look into the rich traditions of cultures on the other side of the world.

4. Submit Your Application Early

Just because you have until the last few hours of a deadline doesn’t mean you should take them! Getting your application in early gives admissions counselors time to thoroughly review your information, and it shows that you’re on top of your game. Some universities have early-admittance policies that favor students who turn in their applications ahead of time.

5. Be Specific

According to an interview with Fox Business, one of the best ways you can make your application and essays stand out is to give clear, specific details for your experience. Don’t just say “Worked at Safeway stocking shelves.” Tell admissions counselors about projects you’ve completed through teamwork and challenges you’ve worked through.

Make it clear how your volunteer and work experience and any awards you’ve earned have affected your educational goals.

Volunteer or Vacation?

Not all summer student volunteer travel programs are created equally. There are some programs that seem to give students what they want: an official charitable volunteer activity and a summer vacation, all in one package. Amazingly, colleges are on to that. As Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, was quoted in the New York Times, “We know the price of an air-conditioned hotel and a plane. It’s an act of affluent tourism masquerading as community service.”

Part of a Larger Pattern

Mr. Nassirian’s comment is not against vacationers, vacations or overseas travel. It’s not about programs that offer teens the opportunity to visit different cultures overseas with peers of their same approximate age and background. The admissions officer was objecting to students going on a vacation and attempting to pass it off as an act of community service. College admissions officers look for a long- term pattern of volunteerism or study, not a single trip the summer before one’s senior year in high school. A trip to China for a student who plans to major in international business and Asian studies makes perfect sense academically. It’s only fitting for a junior in high school who volunteers biweekly in the local hospital’s pediatric ward and plans to major in nursing or medicine to visit Ghana on a community health program. For a student who wants to be an ESL teacher in the United States, it makes perfect sense to embark on an extended language immersion program for Spanish.

Finding the Right Global Leadership Program

These are some of the reasons why it’s imperative to find the right global leadership program and ensure that it meets your needs academically, vocationally and personally. There are many benefits to travel and taking the opportunity to experience other cultures. Finding an organization that recognizes the different needs you’re trying to meet by going on an overseas program and has the experience to help you learn aspect of leadership and multiculturalism is the first step in the journey.

The Leadership Benefits of Volunteer Trips

Sometimes, you have to move outside of your comfort zone to begin to realize your real strengths and weaknesses. When you’re able to do practice leadership activities under the supervision of trained counselors in real-world situations, you learn that you can fail and still persist. You learn how to re-evaluate and retry.

The Language Benefits of Journeys Abroad

If you have the opportunity to travel in a country that speaks a language that you’ve studied as a “foreign” language back in the State, you have hundreds of chances every day to gain degrees of fluency. If you’re visiting a nation to which you’ll probably never return, you still have lessons to learn: of humility, trust and empathy the next time you see someone struggle with English when you return home.

The Personal Benefits of Travel

If begun with an open mind, encountering different cultures, languages, foods, religions and customs can open your eyes to different aspects of your own personality. Even as your eyes look outward onto different vistas, you can explore your inner beliefs, feasr, courage and curiosity.

Seek out Global Leadership opportunities and contact us today to learn more.