The 5 Traits Colleges Look for in Applicants
In our last issue, we discussed the purpose of college applications: “To prove you’ll be successful in college and beyond.”
(See our College Essay Help Center for help with all aspects of applications.)
In this issue, we’ll discuss how students can prove they’ll be successful:
The 5 Traits Colleges Look for in Applicants
How the 5 traits relate to what colleges are looking for
How students can use the 5 traits
Using Prompt’s Essay Planning Tools to help students identify their traits and what to write about.
The 5 Traits Colleges Look for in Applicants
As Emory’s Dean of Admissions puts it, college admissions are about evaluating potential. Students with the most potential exhibit traits that are highly likely to make them successful in college and beyond. At Prompt, we’ve distilled these into 5 traits colleges look for in applicants:
Drive – Pushing yourself to succeed no matter how long the odds; going through difficult situations and coming out a better person.
Intellectual Curiosity – Learning just for the fun of it (e.g., in your free time) to gain a deeper understanding of the subjects/topics in which you are interested.
Initiative – Not willing to accept the status quo; entrepreneurial; always thinking of ways to improve whatever you are working on or involved with.
Contribution – Making your community, school, organizations, or peers better as a result of your involvement and actions.
Diversity of Experiences – Different life experiences and ways of thinking about the world; adding unique perspectives to the student body.
How the 5 traits relate to what colleges are looking for
Colleges are looking for students who will be successful in college and beyond. Students exhibiting one of more of the 5 Traits are able to prove they’ll be successful.
Driven students are more likely to graduate. They’re more likely to succeed in whatever they choose to do. Drive is so important that as one admissions dean put it, they’re looking for students who are unusually driven – even in a pool of highly-driven applicants.
Intellectually curious students are more likely to graduate. They’re more likely to keep learning throughout life, leading to a greater impact on whatever they choose to do. Intellectual curiosity matters so much that some colleges, like Stanford, even have a supplemental essay just about intellectual curiosity. And Emory University has an intellectual curiosity score they use when evaluating applicants.
Students who take the initiative are always making everything around them better – a trait that enhances a college community and signals that the person will make every organization they’re a part of in the future better.
Contributors make every group of people they’re a part of better as a result of their presence. Contributors are the connective tissue of a college campus and any organization, enabling colleges to fulfill their missing by creating a great community.
Students with diverse experiences help other students develop their own perspectives. And students with diverse experiences tend to want to do many different things upon graduation, enabling colleges to fulfill their mission of having an impact across many communities, countries, and industries.
How students can use the 5 Traits
Students prove they have one or more of the 5 Traits by explaining their experiences in their essays, activities list, and additional information section. After all, the best signal of future success is past success.
For example, students explaining experiences where they overcame a challenge will prove they’re driven. Students describing experiences where they learned a lot about a subject or engaged with new information will show they’re intellectually curious.
Students must brainstorm content for their applications by considering which of the 5 Traits are their strengths. Then, the content across an application mustang focus on these 2 or 3 strengths. While students can touch on all 5 traits, showcasing 2 or 3 strengths makes it more likely for a student to set themselves apart from other applicants (e.g., be unusually driven in a pool of driven applicants).
Using Prompt’s Essay Planning Tools
Prompt’s free Essay Planning Tools help students identify which of the 5 Traits are their strengths. Then, the tools guide students through brainstorming questions to help them identify content they should write about.
Tens of thousands of students use the tools each year to write more compelling essays. You can visit our homepage for high school counselors to set up an Application and Essay Resources page for your students to access the Essay Planning Tools. Or if you’re a MaiaLearning user, you can access the Tools for free from within MaiaLearning.
In our next issue, we’ll be focusing on how colleges score applications!
If you’re not a subscriber, please add your email address for more issues!
And if you enjoyed this newsletter, forward it to other counselors!