When I was a high school senior, my well-intentioned, yet inexperienced dad laminated every article from our local newspaper I had ever been mentioned in.
He put together scrapbooks for the seven colleges I applied to and encouraged me to send them to them. There were newspaper clippings of my tennis matches, winning States for Odyssey of the Mind, and even a photo of me performing in a local performance of "Fiddler on the Roof." My dad thought this would enhance my application.
It wasn't until I became an admissions officer that I realized how damaging "extra stuff" in an application can be. Lucky for me, I applied to college in the early 1990s when enrollment was down and acceptance rates were high. That is not the case anymore.
On a daily basis, I get asked if students should submit a resume, extra letters of recommendation, research papers, and more. Some students even point out the endless number of colleges that seem to encourage this. For example, Clemson University offers students the chance to upload an "optional resume" on its supplement. Clemson also allows students to upload the "optional personal statement" (a.k.a. the main essay). If you want to know what to do, consider the fact that admissions officers read an application in less than five minutes. They don't have time to read a resume. Heck, Clemson doesn't even have time to read your essay (unless you are applying to the honors program).
There are only a few colleges that actually want and read the resume. The University of Texas at Austin and Cornell University's business and hotel administration programs want a resume. For almost every other college in the U.S., admissions officers rely solely on a student's activities and honors lists in the application instead of a resume. In fact, the resume will simply never get reviewed.
And, what about those extra letters of recommendation? While many colleges permit more, admissions officers focus on the bare minimum. The more letters you submit, the more annoyed they get. Just because the University of Michigan allows a student to submit three teacher recommendation letters doesn't mean you should. Their supplement specifically says that one teacher recommendation letter is required. Stick with one. They get about 100,000 applications a year. They don't want to read more than what is required.
Yale University permits "supplementary materials," like musical recordings, dance videos, or creative writing pieces. Remember, though, it's Yale. The bar is extraordinarily high for every single thing in a student's application. If you submit something extra that is not required, it can become a part of the selection process. The faculty of Yale will be comparing your work as a high school student to Yale undergraduates, and even graduate students. Few students' work will be at that level in high school.
So, why do colleges permit extra stuff if they're not going to review it? They want to appear that they are considering everything. But the reality is they aren't.
READ MORE: How To Order Your Activities on Common App for the Biggest Impact
When I first started working in admissions and hard copies of applications were read, there was an old saying that some used: The thicker the application, the thicker the student. It was a crude comment, for sure. But the students who submitted extra stuff were often overcompensating for something missing in their application or over-saturating an already strong application.
It has only gotten more competitive since I first started in this industry. Admissions officers have a fraction of the time to read an application that I once did. Don't overload admissions officers with information they don't want to see. Instead, invest in the pieces of the application that matter. That extra stuff you want to send might be better laminated in a scrapbook for you and your family to appreciate one day soon.
