Initials Award Application Made Easy

Countersign award application

hey guys i'm kristen from college lead i help students with planning high school courses and extracurriculars and also guide them through the college application process you can reach me at mycollegelead gmail.com or at mycollegelead.com i am doing something a little bit different this month for the month of june i will be matching your donation to a black lives matter related fund with a free one-on-one 30-minute consultation with me or a free resume or college essay review every life is precious and in our society today african american lives are disproportionately at risk let's do our part to take a stand against racial inequality donate however much you can whether that is dollars fifty dollars or even ten dollars and i will still match your donation all that i ask is for you to send me a copy of your donation receipt you don't need to send me the money directly you can find more information at mycollegelead.com fundraiser so today i will be covering very briefly all you need to know about honors in the college application process and just as a quick note throughout this video i'll be using the words honor and award interchangeably for the purpose of college apps though they pretty much mean the same thing but i just wanted to clarify that so first let's talk about requirements what do you actually need to submit there are several ways first of all that you can apply to college and you may or may not already know this very likely you'll be using the common application as the name implies that's the application that more than 800 colleges including the ivy leagues accepts you will also have school specific applications like the university of california and that includes uc san diego uc berkeley ucla among others up until february 2020 mit also had their own application system so if you are planning to apply to mit do uh stay updated on their website to see how things change i believe texas also has their own application system like california so be sure to check all the colleges on your list for how you will be applying to them don't assume do not assume that every school on your list uses the common app because that may very well not be the case it's better to stay safe than sorry the app requirements across these different schools will differ so that's why it's always better to plan ahead so first i will be covering the requirements of the common application for honors and then for the university of california i'm hoping that these two samples will give you a good idea of how the requirements can differ across different application systems i've painted screenshots of the common application here so that it will be easier for you to reference but if you want to know where to find this page in the common application go to my video on how to start applying to college or how to get started with college applications and there i walk you through how to navigate the common app and also find the sections for honors and also extracurriculars i'll try to link it up here but then i'll also provide it in the description down below so the common application allows you to submit up to five honors and note that that does not mean you have to submit exactly five you could submit two three or four or even one um honors the common application requires you to submit honestly quite minimal information on your honors all they need is the title the grade level and the level of recognition the university of california application however is a little more complicated so to check that out we're going to hop directly to their website so i am now in the university of california application portal and in the activities and awards section one thing you should note is that the uc actually allows you to submit up to 20 activities and awards so this is a combination of both whereas the comment app allows you to submit 5 honors and 10 extracurricular activities that might seem overwhelming but notice that the uc asks you to submit with quality and not quantity in mind and this should not be news to my subscribers since i say quality over quantity in almost every single video and here they want you to choose experiences that demonstrate commitment responsibility leadership and most of all genuine interest and this is one way of how quality is much better than quantity so let's check out what you actually need to submit if you are adding an honor to the activities and awards section of the uc app go to category select award or honor and here we have to include the name level of recognition notice that this category right here was not uh present in the common app so a little bit more detail here is required you also need to include the type of award or honor whether it is academic or non-academic you have to include when you receive it same as a comment app and here's a little different you have to include the eligibility requirements for this award or honor how competitive was it how many people are selected to receive the award what is the acceptance rate you will also have the opportunity to share what you did to achieve this honor or award notice that these responses allow you to include up to 500 characters and that is quite a lot so this i in my opinion is one way that the uc is enforcing this idea of quality over quantity they want you to really think about what you're going to include on the application and decide whether it is meaningful or not so now that we have what you have to submit out of the way and that's all clear let's discuss what actually counts as an honor and how do you prioritize or rate them if you have more than what you can include in these applications i have grouped the types of honors and awards in six different categories but note that this is in absolutely no way exhaustive remember that every student is different so you may have different interests from your peers and different passions that you pursue if you have an award that is not listed on this that does not mean it is not an award so just to quickly run through these there are academic competitions for instance the national latin exam or science olympiads there are athletic events if you are varsity athlete you will be competing almost on a weekly basis during season there are art competitions performances or exhibitions volunteer-based or community or service-based awards grades based and or department awards and also honors society one of the best-known honor society i would say is the national honor society it's very likely that your school will have its own chapter i would say the top row in general will be the category of awards you should prioritize this is because this highlights one of your skills or passions or edges if you will and if you are wondering what a spike is then watch my latest video on a spike and hopefully that will answer any questions that might have come up after i mentioned the word edge so these last two sections grades based and department awards as well as honor society would typically rank a little lower than the top row and the reason is because why you won these awards is already reflected by other aspects of your application for instance if your acceptance to the honor society is based purely on gpa your gpa is already listed on your transcript and colleges already know that you have a high gpa if you're running out of space there's no need to be redundant and repeat or emphasize the same point that you have a high gpa if you really do want to squeeze in your membership to an honor society somewhere in your college application you can always list your membership in an honor society as an activity and your extracurriculars and in the common application you can submit a 150 word character description i believe it is still 150 words but you can submit a brief description of that extracurricular activity and is is and it is there in that description where you can list this is an honor or an award and this is how i want it other two factors to consider when you are prioritizing or ranking your honors because you have more than what you can include on the comment application is to look at recognition level and achievement level and i would say in terms of weight recognition level weights a lot heavier than achievement level for example a first place award at a school-wide event is not as strong or it and will not rank higher than a third place award at an international competition i hope that helps clarify and make sense recognition level weights is more important or is more significant than the achievement level that being said that being said there are also uh exceptions for instance participation at an international event if it was the case that anyone could apply is obviously not as impressive as any other award there is out there there are alternative ways you can still list more than five honors or awards in your application and you should only do this if you feel that listing more than the top five honors you already provided will significantly strengthen your application so a few ways you can do that are in your art supplement if you are artistically inclined i'll talk a little bit more about this in just a sec you can also as i mentioned with the example of the honor society list that in the description of your uh extracurricular activity another way is you could write about it in your personal essays there are opportunities to include more than five honors and awards but again do this only if you think that your application would otherwise be incomplete if you did not mention that additional honor and award using myself as an example music was a huge part of my life and i spent a ridiculous amount of time both in middle school and in high school practicing the flute i competed both nationally and internationally and had and i had more than five honors uh that i could list in my application but because i spent so much time practicing the flute i felt that my application would be very incomplete if i didn't include that so what i did is in my art supplement that i submitted to colleges i included an arts resume that included a lot of awards and competitions that i had won from playing the flute and actually the five honors and awards in my common application did not have any mention of music they were all uh mostly academic or uh they were mostly academic based awards and honors there is no need to repeat and honor an award if you have already mentioned it in another area of your college application and that concludes this really quick overview of honors i hope this has given you a really good starting point in kicking off your college application process if you want any more information feel free to visit mycollegelead.com for newsletters exclusive downloads a new blog i just started and more if you found this helpful please give this video a like and also subscribe to my channel for more content like this thank you so much for watching