Personal branding
Not self-promotion, being findable, credible and reachable by people who could help you. The single biggest predictor of whether a student lands research, an internship or a real leadership role is whether they asked.
Six-step checklist
- Create a LinkedIn profile: the only professional profile most adults will look for.
- Get one decent headshot: outdoors, shade, plain background, no filters. Thirty photos, pick one.
- Add every real experience: jobs, volunteering, research, the club you actually ran. The grocery store job shows reliability nothing else does.
- Put numbers in every bullet: how many people, how many times, over how long.
- Clean up your digital footprint: search your own name in a private window, including images.
- Use it to reach out: twenty messages, expect eighteen to be ignored. You need one yes.
Progress is stored in your browser's local storage, not the database. It is a personal reading checklist and shouldn't sync to counselors or contributors.
Bullet auditor
Paste any bullet, from your activities or LinkedIn, and it checks four things:
| Check | Looking for |
|---|---|
| Numbers | Any digit at all. Most student bullets have none. |
| Opening verb | built, ran, founded, led, taught, raised, designed, repairedā¦ |
| Filler verbs | helped, assisted, participated, was involved, responsible for |
| Outcome | What changed because of you, not just what you were assigned |
It also enforces the 150-character Common App limit.
The auditor deliberately does not rewrite your bullet. A student inventing metrics to satisfy a tool is worse than a vague bullet. If you don't know the number, go and count it , counting usually reveals you did more than you thought.
The page also flags every activity description you've already written that contains no digits, linking back to Activities & honors to fix them.
Outreach templates
Three, all written to be edited:
- Cold email to a professor: names their specific work, offers to do the unglamorous parts, gives them an easy out.
- LinkedIn message to an alum: asks for fifteen minutes, not a job.
- Asking a local nonprofit for a real role: proposes a specific job and offers a trial month.
One rule: never send the same message to two people without changing the specific detail. The detail is the entire reason anyone replies.