Parents often ask remarkably similar questions as their children enter high school.
How many AP classes should my child take?
How many extracurricular activities are enough?
How many volunteer hours are enough?
How many leadership positions should they pursue?
Which summer programs will make the biggest difference?
These are reasonable questions because they help parents understand, compare, and solve a very practical problem: how to help their child build the strongest college application possible.
Parents naturally want to help their children build the strongest college application possible. I believe the most effective way to accomplish that, though, is by helping students develop lasting competence.
Competence may not be the first word that comes to mind when families think about college admissions, but I believe it is the foundation of everything they hope to accomplish. A strong college application is rarely built by focusing on the application itself. It is built by helping students become genuinely more capable. As competence grows, it naturally gives rise to the experiences, accomplishments, and personal qualities colleges are looking for.
In education, competence is generally understood as the ability to apply knowledge and skills effectively in real situations. In practice, that ability develops through experience, reflection, and sound judgment. Knowing something is valuable, but competence emerges when students learn to apply what they know in situations that require responsibility, decision-making, and problem-solving.
Meaningful experiences provide the opportunities students need to develop competence.
Challenging classes, extracurricular activities, leadership opportunities, volunteer work, artistic pursuits, athletics, independent projects, research opportunities, part-time jobs, and summer programs all have value. Their greatest value is not that they become another line on a college application. Their greatest value is that they provide opportunities to learn, grow, solve problems, accept responsibility, and become more capable.
As competence grows, so does a student's ability to contribute to other people and their communities.
There is an analogy many people know from airline safety instructions. If the oxygen masks drop, passengers are instructed to put on their own mask before helping others. Not because helping others isn't important, but because we cannot effectively help anyone if we are unable to function ourselves. Meaningful contribution works much the same way.
Students often associate contribution with volunteer hours because those hours are visible and easy to measure. Volunteer work certainly has value, but not every student creates the greatest contribution in exactly the same way.
Imagine a pianist who has spent twelve years developing exceptional musical ability. That student decides to spend one hundred hours stocking shelves at a food bank. The community benefits from those hours, and there is genuine value in that service.
But by spending those one hundred hours in a role that many other volunteers could have filled, the student also gives up the opportunity to contribute in a way that only years of developed competence made possible. (Related Insight: The Opportunity Cost of Every Commitment)
Organizing community performances, teaching younger musicians, performing in hospitals or senior centers, or raising money through music all make use of abilities that very few people possess.
When students spend years developing meaningful competence but never use it to serve others, society loses something unique that only they could have contributed. I believe the greatest value to society often comes from giving competence.
This is also the kind of meaningful impact colleges hope to see. Colleges are not looking for volunteer hours in isolation. They are looking for evidence that students have learned to use their knowledge, abilities, and experience to create meaningful value for other people.
That does not mean every student's contribution should look the same. A musician may contribute through music. An athlete may mentor younger players. A programmer may build software for a nonprofit. A student passionate about science may teach STEM workshops or develop solutions to real problems. The common thread is not the activity itself. It is the thoughtful use of competence to make a meaningful contribution.
Volunteer hours certainly have value, but hours alone tell very little about the quality or impact of that contribution. Context matters. Colleges are asking a much deeper question: What does this student's service tell us about who they are, what they have developed, and how they choose to use their abilities to benefit others?
Parents cannot develop competence for their children. What they can do is create an environment where competence has the opportunity to grow by encouraging curiosity instead of simply chasing credentials, welcoming challenges rather than avoiding them, allowing children to take ownership of their decisions, supporting long-term commitment instead of constantly searching for the next impressive activity, and helping students reflect on what they are learning rather than simply what they are accomplishing.
This is one reason holistic admissions has become such an important part of the college admissions process. Admissions officers certainly notice grades, course rigor, accomplishments, awards, and leadership positions. They are also looking for evidence of initiative, resilience, intellectual curiosity, responsibility, judgment, leadership, and the ability to contribute to a campus community. Those qualities develop through years of meaningful experiences. A college application simply provides the evidence. (Related Insight: A GPA Tells Part of the Story. An Application Tells the Rest.)
Parents naturally want to help their children build the strongest college application possible. Ironically, the best way to accomplish that is not by focusing on the application itself. It is by helping students become genuinely more capable because a college application does not simply document what a student has done. It reflects who that student has become.