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CRIMSON EDUCATION
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 extracurricular and leadership
(ECL) 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 ECL projects that will set you apart
from the competition? What ideas and pathways should you be
considering, and most importantly... where do you start?
Tressa Thomas
Crimson
ECL Director
Overview
Why ECL’s 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, ECL experiences bring a student’s
application to life!
01
Find your story
As you begin developing your ECL activities, 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 ECL 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 customised 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.
As long as your goals are SMART, they are attainable! Just follow the plan
and trust the process.
05
Build the online infrastructure
If your project is event-based, you’ll need to think about all the details that
go into organising 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 maximise the on-going effect of your efforts.
06
Recruit partners
Think through what kind of partnerships you need to bring this project to life.
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 to 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.
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
This student’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 their
school’s debate team, they want 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.
+ 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!
+ 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 Crimson 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!
Will Morris
Crimson Strategist & ECL expert
How Crimson can help
Crimson Education is the world’s leading university
admissions support company specialising in helping
students gain entry to some of the world’s most
competitive universities including the Ivy League,
Stanford, MIT, Oxford, Cambridge and more.
Our holistic approach provides support across all
areas of the US and UK university application process.
We assist you to find your best-fit university, create a
personalised roadmap, ace your standardised tests,
craft the perfect essay and build candidacy through
amazing extracurricular and leadership projects.
crimsoneducation.org/contact
MADE WITH BY THE CRIMSON TEAM