Stuffing Your Resume Means Trading Integrity for Success

In today’s college admissions game, the path to admission is just that — a game. To get into selective colleges, kids have to learn to play. The rules vary, but the goals of the game are almost always the same. Stack up on extracurriculars. Do community service. Acquire as many distinctions and awards as possible. Do whatever it takes to impress colleges, because your ticket to admission is no longer just your academic transcript — it’s your resume.

This game may seem simple enough for some kids, but for me, it presents a problem. Because as much as I want to go to a great college, I don’t want to play to get in. I don’t want to suck up to colleges who I don’t believe truly have my best interest at heart. I don’t want to tailor my high school experience to what I think colleges want. And if this means that I don’t get into top schools, then so be it. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying. I’m just going to try my way, not theirs.

Throughout my years in high school, I have seen kids who seem to be willing to do anything to get into the right schools. Resume padding is actually quite common at East. In a survey of 153 students, 41 percent admitted to padding their resumes with things they didn’t care about, while only 31 percent believed that it was wrong to do so.

To those 31 percent, let me tell you that there is a problem with this type of resume building: it’s disingenuous. Students who play the game present false versions of themselves to colleges. You’ve probably heard these kids justify their involvement in activities by saying, “I’m just doing this because it’ll look good on my resume.” Resume stuffers like these lose integrity by doing what they think colleges want them to do and not what they want to do.

This disgusts and saddens me, but I don’t judge these students; I judge the colleges who hold them to expectations that are too high for teenagers, even highly talented, highly motivated ones. A study from UC Irvine found that the average age of emotional maturity is 22. Apparently other colleges never read this, because it seems that most of the top schools forget that their prospective students are still teens, not emotionally mature adults. Kids at our age are more inconsistent and emotionally unstable than they will ever be, and top schools expect them to transcend the turbulence of their development. I mean, lighten up, we’re still kids, not presidential candidates.

Another reason I don’t judge the students who play the resume game is because they’re just trying their best to reach their lofty goals, the ones they’ve been conditioned to have by external influences. The society we live in has exacerbated the problem of admissions competition by evaluating success in relative terms. The kids who so desperately endeavor to get into top colleges often do so because they believe admission to the best schools officially validates their superiority over other students. This equation of success with status rather than happiness lies at the heart of the problem.

If students who play the resume game realized that they don’t need to be comparatively more successful than others to be happy, then more of them would be fine “settling” for state schools, which actually offer educations that can be just as good as those offered by top private schools. What many students who play the game fail to realize is that the true value of a college education is determined by what a student puts into it, not where it comes from.

But because many kids my age don’t realize this, or just don’t agree, they continue to play the game. They cut corners in school, they dip their feet in activities here and there without ever really committing, they cheat and they give effort only towards their resume. This growing behavioral trend has diminished the educational quality of high school. When kids and parents only care about their grades and the end result, they take shortcuts and often fail to benefit from the real purpose of education: learning. In the modern high school, where getting into the right college rather than learning is the end goal for students, knowledge becomes lost in translation.

After considering all of this, I came to a conclusion that I have stuck with ever since: I will do the things I love. When I apply to colleges next fall, I will present to them the true me, not some fake type-A teenage powerhouse. If the best me isn’t enough for the schools I want to go to, then so be it. After all, if I have to change who I am in order to go to a school, then I’m probably not meant to go there (nor do I want to).

Since I stumbled upon this revelation, I’ve done things differently. I’ve poured my heart into journalism. I started “The Breakfast Club,” a club that combines my love of people with my passion for writing in an effort to help break down social barriers and promote social tolerance. I’ve invested myself in classes to learn, not to get A’s (although that’s an added bonus). Above all, I’ve stopped doing things just to impress colleges. By doing what I love and doing it to the best of my abilities, I’ve learned to play the game by my rules, and not theirs.

You should too. I understand that not all of you can. Financial considerations, among others, force many students to play the game. But if you aren’t burdened by a less-than-stellar track record or the need to get scholarships, then I ask this of you: just consider whether admission is really worth it.

If a school expects you to be in five AP classes, four clubs and three sports, and you’re bending over backwards to meet their expectations, then do you really want to go there? Do you belong there?

After all, college should be about having fun as getting a good preparation for the future. But so should high school. So go out, have fun, be yourself, do what you want to do. And if you can’t get into your dream school by being you, then remember: it’s not the end of the world.

It’s just the beginning of one that might just be better.