It is true that elite college admissions has become increasingly professionalized in recent years. We at Ivy Coach have sought to dispel the myth of the well-rounded applicant because we know that it is the budding experts and specialists who get into top colleges and universities. Framing yourself as a future leader in your respective field will play well with admissions officers. But does this strategy extend to LinkedIn? 

If you read various press articles on the subject, you will come away with the belief that a detailed LinkedIn profile is crucial for a competitive college application. But this publicity campaign is nonsense! LinkedIn is an adult social media platform for working professionals. Very few students actually benefit from maintaining a robust page that is linked on their application — it’s just a waste of time!

The Common App Activities Section Is All Most Students Need

LinkedIn is just a fancy way of listing the sorts of activities that are found in The Common App. activities section. Linking to a professional social media page or uploading a resume (on applications for schools which allow a resume to be uploaded) is only beneficial for those students who can not fit all of their extracurriculars in the activities section. But these cases are few and far between. 

Considering that most competitive applicants all have singular admissions hooks which showcase their particular passion, ten or so activities is usually more than enough to paint a picture of deep engagement with key topics or issues. Listing that you spent three hours a couple years ago volunteering at an arts organization, when you’re applying as the next best biomedical engineer, will only serve to make you seem well-rounded, which is the bane of a competitive college application. What’s more, it will come off as opportunistic and disingenuous. Take it from us. We’ve been successfully getting students into highly selective colleges and universities for over three decades because we understand the power of the singular admissions hook.

Admissions Officers Don’t Have Amnesia!

Regurgitating the same list of activities from the activities section on an optional resume upload or via a LinkedIn page will harm more than it helps. There’s an expression in elite college admissions: “The thicker the file, the thicker the applicant.” Admissions officers already know that you worked on that campaign and volunteered at that organization — they read about it in the activities section! These admissions officers already have to sift through thousands upon thousands of applications each cycle, and make distinctions between painstakingly similar applications. Don’t waste their time with redundancies!

Some students and families feel pressure to take advantage of every last opportunity to fill their applications with as much information as possible. This strategy will be ineffective if no new information is being stated on the optional resume, website, or supplement. On the other hand, if you feel as though there’s something unique about one of these additional components that has not yet been captured by the rest of your application, by all means include it!

This could include an elusive eleventh extracurricular that did not make the cut for the activities list or links to press or media coverage of some major event you’ve participated in. The vast majority of students, however, do not need to take advantage of this extra space on the application. The quality of the activities listed certainly matters over the quantity.

How Ivy Coach Helps Students Get Into the Schools of Their Dreams

Don’t waste your time trying to frame yourself as a professional with gratuitous services like LinkedIn. Leave the strategizing to the experts at Ivy Coach — we’ve got you covered!

If you’re interested in optimizing your child’s case for admission to an elite college or university, fill out our complimentary consultation form, and we’ll be in touch.