How to
Create Your Own
Online Extracurricular
Initiative
C R I M S O N E D U C AT I O N
How to
Build Online
Extracurricular and
Leadership Projects
One of the most refreshing aspects of the US and UK application
processes is the universities’ desire to get to know their applicants
as people. Admissions officers can get a good gauge on a student’s
academic ability via their school grades and test scores, but it is a
student’s representation of their extracurriculars and leadership
activities which show how they explore their interests with purpose
and action.
Every student has their own personal passions – but how do you use
your passions to build extracurricular projects that will set you apart
from the competition? What ideas and pathways should you be
considering, and most importantly... where do you start?
That’s where Crimson comes in!
Crimson is the only college admissions support company in the
world that offers students comprehensive extracurricular support,
with expert mentors providing step-by-step guidance for every
student based on their individual passions and goals.
To give you an idea of what is involved when it comes to building the
ultimate extracurricular project, take a look at the nine tips offered
by Crimson Extracurricular Director and University of Washington
graduate,
Tressa Thomas.
Tressa Thomas
Crimson
ECL Director
Overview
Why extracurriculars
matter?
In order to get into their top choice university,
a student’s application must tell a compelling,
concise, and clear story. While grades and
test scores show a student’s academic skills,
extracurricular and leadership activities reveal a
student’s personality, emotional intelligence, and
personal growth! In other words, extracurricular
experiences bring a student’s application to life!
So where do you start? Here are 9 key principles to
building a strong extracurricular profile
that is unique to you.
01
Find your story
As you begin developing your extracurriculars, first consider what story you
want your application to tell. It is this story which differentiates the thousands
of students who apply to schools like Harvard with top grades and excellent
test scores.
Your activities should form a broader ‘narrative’ for your application. What
story do they tell and how does this story set your application apart?
02
Brainstorm
Start to brainstorm project ideas that support your story and align with your
passions. Don’t discount any project ideas at this point – just write what
comes to mind and think outside the box!
Once you have a full list of ideas, pick your three favorites. Consider
combining two ideas into one and/or finding ways to incorporate more of
your skills/talents into your favorite project idea.
03
Choose your project and get it online
Once you have chosen your leadership project, it is critical to find a way that
it can not only function online, but thrive!
Consider how you can move your project online for maximum impact.
For example, an event can become a webinar and a fundraiser can reach
maximum audiences via a customized website.
04
Set your goals
Create a document to help you track the progress of your project. At the top
of this document, write out your project goals.
Make sure your goals are S.M.A.R.T:
+ Specific
+ Measureable
+ Attainable
+ Relevant
+ Time Oriented
As long as your goals are SMART, they are attainable! Just follow the plan
and trust the process.
05
Build the online infrastructure
Now it’s time to get to work!
If your project is event-based, you’ll need to think about all the details that
go into organizing a successful webinar. If your project’s goal is to deliver
a product or service, you will likely need to build a website. If your project
is an educational program, you will likely need to build your own teaching
curriculum.
Whatever the case, you’ll need to plan the before, during and after – as well as
how you will maximize the on-going effect of your efforts.
06
Recruit partners
Think through what kind of partnerships you need to bring this project to life.
Do you need speakers to host a panel? Permissions from an institution - like
a university or government office? Resources from the local library? Support
from your own school district?
Think through the kinds of partnerships that would benefit and expand the
scope of your project.
07
Find Funding
If your project requires direct funding, you will need to start applying for grants
and fellowships early and often. Most of these applications will require you to
submit a budget plan, so get started on this ahead of time.
Think about how much funding you will need, how it will be used, and if there
are profits, how you will handle them.
08
Make your pitch
Almost every great idea in history has started with a pitch, which answers that
fundamental question of why anyone should care about your project.
Your pitch maximizes the impact of your project by convincing two groups of
stakeholders—your audience and your supporters—that your project is worth
their time, energy, and/or resources.
09
Scale
Scaling your project means setting the stage for it to continue growing and
expanding. It also requires planning, some funding, and the right systems, staff,
processes, technology, and partners.
This is perhaps one of the most important aspects of a successful leadership
project. Scaling requires grit, perseverance, and creativity, and when done
successfully, can help your project have a lasting impact on your communities.
Want to know more
about how you can take
your extracurricular
projects to the next level?
Request a free one hour consultation with one
of our expert Academic Advisors now.
Book a free consultation
Extracurriculars
to explore during
COVID-19
There is no doubt that the
uncertainty created by the
coronavirus has caused many
students to question how to
negotiate meaningful activities
during times of lockdown and
homeschooling.
But while this period is unsettling, it
has provided students with the time
to contemplate how to ‘think out-of-
the-box’, build projects online, and
make a difference at a time when
virtual communication has become
key to our support of one another on
a global scale.
Here are just a few of our amazing
students who are creating projects
of impact on a community,
state, national, and sometimes
international scale. Their examples
may inspire you to ideate your own
project, and build a meaningful
initiative which will not only expand
your skills, but provide admissions
officers with a real insight as to your
personal goals and passions.
Paying it forward with an
online ‘mask-sharing’ project
Crimson student Yuxi’s mask-sharing project began with a simple
gesture — her offering to give anyone who gave another person a
free mask $1 of her savings. Months later, after her initiative gained
traction on online pages promoting her gesture of kindness, Yuxi
has built a charity where people not only give one another free
masks, but donate to her ‘Let’s Take Care of Each Other’ initiative.
Since its creation, “Let’s Take Care of Each Other” has distributed
hundreds of tubes of hand-sanitizer, over 300 additional masks, and
150 pairs of gloves for local communities in China.
A conference on the impact of
COVID-19 on drama and theatre.
Crimson student Rolan is organizing an
online conference on the impact of the
coronavirus on drama and theater for
high school students who, like him, have
had school plays canceled due to the
pandemic. Rolan is organizing several
panels and discussions that will connect
high school students with local theater
makers to discuss their work, what
theater may look like post-coronavirus,
and expose students to outside theatrical
opportunities they can pursue during
and after a COVID-19 world.
3H - A project providing
younger students
with academic support
during isolation.
Chloe’s project “3H” provides a
structured hour of instruction for
primary students in years 4-6 as
a supplement to online learning
provided by their schools. Chloe
realized that many primary schools
were struggling to engage their
students online, so 3H provides
students with interactive lessons
across a variety of subjects including
maths, history, English, geography,
physics, chemistry, and biology.
Combating racism
during COVID-19
Yunzhong’s project involves building
an online community to address and
combat racism against individuals
of Asian descent brought on by
COVID-19. As a member of his school’s
debate team, Yunzhong wants to
engage community members of all
ages and backgrounds, including
fellow high school students, business
owners and, government officials,
who come from Asian backgrounds
to share their experiences regarding
racism and discrimination since the
pandemic began.
‘Wonder Woman’ —
an interview series for
women during COVID-19
Pre-coronavirus, Kazakhstan student
Ayazhan, created ‘Wonder Women’, an
interview series with different women of
different backgrounds (business women,
students, sportswomen, scientists,
housewives) to show others how different
women feel living in Kazakhstan. The
interviews touch on challenges in the
workforce, relationships in the family, and
will hopefully inspire the population to
view women on the same level as men.
With the emergence of the pandemic,
Ayazhan successfully pivoted her project
to an online-only format, her interviews
now focused on how the virus is uniquely
impacting women’s lives in Kazakhstan.
Other extracurriculars
you can explore online
Beyond the mentioned projects there
are many opportunities for high
schoolers to explore online during
times of coronavirus shutdowns.
Some opportunities include:
Taking an online course
offered by a top university
Several universities, including the
Ivy League, are offering free online
courses during COVID-19. Taking an
online university course is a way to
demonstrate your passion for a specific
academic area and get a taste for the
academic challenges that you will face.
These courses are offered in different
areas and disciplines. There are options
for all students, from courses focused
on Greek mythology to artificial
intelligence! Many platforms also offer
courses focused on helping the student
to learn new skills such as academic
writing, public speaking, or developing
negotiation techniques.
Some popular online university courses platforms include:
+ edX: which provides free online courses from Harvard, MIT, and other top
schools
+ Coursera:which offers free and paid online courses by more than 190
universities and companies including Stanford, UPenn, Google, and IBM.
HTML Learn a new language!
CSS
Speaking several languages can
JAVA
really set you apart in our globalized
world and being multilingual can be
beneficial in the college application
process!
With the availability of several tools,
Learn to code! such as applications that use the
power of artificial intelligence to
The use of global technology
personalize the learning experience,
continues to grow, and people are
learning a new language has never
predicting that programming will
been easier! You can focus on the
become as essential a skill as reading,
languages most used in the business
writing, and mathematics within the
world (in addition to English, of
next decade. Coding languages are
course) such as Spanish and Mandarin,
used in all applications, websites,
or seek knowledge in equally
and software in addition to having
renowned languages, such as French
several other applications such as
or Arabic.
data analysis. Even for those who do
not intend to pursue a profession Popular language learning apps
in the area of technology, a basic include:
understanding of programming
+ Duolingo
becomes increasingly important
to navigate with the tools we use + Babbel
on a daily basis. Therefore, another
extracurricular activity to immerse
yourself in is learning a programming
language, such as Java, used to
develop Android applications, or
Python, considered one of the
most versatile and easy to learn
programming languages.
Check out some sites where you can
take programming courses online:
+ Codecademy
+ MIT OpenCourseWar
+ Code.org
+ Khan Academy
Do independent research
Research benefits everyone!
Depending on the research you
decide to conduct, you may gain
new knowledge and reach different
conclusions in different academic
areas, from cinema to chemistry
and business. To start your Creative Writing
independent research project, first, Research shows that writing can be
you need to think about a research beneficial to enhance our creativity and
question; then begin looking for ability to think in different contexts, in
primary and secondary sources addition to helping us deal with difficult
that can answer your question (be times. For this reason, creative writing
it books, other research papers, is an extracurricular activity valued
surveys that you can develop by universities, in addition to being a
yourself, etc.). Once the job is done, way of reflecting during a challenging
look for different academic journals moment. If you have always liked
where you can publish it! If you poetry, short stories, or have dreamt
would like to work under university of writing your own book, writing is
faculty, check out the C
rimson a valuable skill that can be done at
Research Institute! home. After developing some texts, you
can send them to literary contests or
newspapers, create a website or social
media page to share them, or even
publish an eBook on Amazon!
See contest tips and tools that can help
you produce and produce quality texts:
+ Amazon Kindle: A guide to
publishing your work for free in the
form of an eBook for Kindle.
+ Storybird: A tool that allows you to
assemble books using models and
illustrations.
+ Creativity Portal: Inspirations,
guides, images and more to inspire
you with your written works.
A few
last words...
from Crimson Strategist and extracurricular expert Will Morris
“High school is a time for you to build your
foundations for the rest of your life. While we often
think of this in terms of academic preparation,
extracurricular achievement is just as important.
By founding and developing an extracurricular project
in high school, students gain invaluable experience and
skills that will benefit them not only in college, but for the
remainder of their careers. With the tools that we have at
their fingertips in our high tech age, from a very early age
students can improve the lives of those around them.
In a time when we are confronted with enormous
obstacles, you can work hard to gain the skills and
experiences early on that will someday allow you to
make an impact that will change the world.”
Will Morris
Crimson Strategist & Extracurricular expert
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