Accomplishments Workshop: How to Communicate Your Activities and Achievements
June 18, 2026 9:00 am EDT
An admissions reader opens your file at 10:47 on a Thursday morning. They have a stack of others waiting. They read your transcript, your essays, and — for a few minutes — your activities section. Ten lines, fifty characters each. In that small space, you either become a person they remember when they advocate for files at committee, or you don't.
Most international applicants treat the activities section as a checklist: school council member, debate team, volunteer, olympiad participant. The applicants who get pulled out of the stack treat it differently. They show what they did, what changed because of it, and what the work says about how they think. The difference between the two approaches isn't innate — it's a craft, and it's teachable.
This is a working session, not a lecture. Bring your list of activities, roles, and achievements ready to edit. Alena Savitskaya, Undergraduate Enrollment Director at Minerva University, will work alongside participants on:
- Reading the activities section the way admissions officers actually read it — what gets seen, what gets skipped, what gets remembered
- Moving from "member of" to "led a project that" — with concrete before-and-after rewrites
- Framing experiences that don't look like traditional extracurriculars — family responsibilities, paid work, independent projects, caring for siblings — as the genuine skills they are
- Avoiding the patterns that consistently weaken otherwise strong applications
You'll leave with rewritten lines, not just principles.
Most international applicants treat the activities section as a checklist: school council member, debate team, volunteer, olympiad participant. The applicants who get pulled out of the stack treat it differently. They show what they did, what changed because of it, and what the work says about how they think. The difference between the two approaches isn't innate — it's a craft, and it's teachable.
This is a working session, not a lecture. Bring your list of activities, roles, and achievements ready to edit. Alena Savitskaya, Undergraduate Enrollment Director at Minerva University, will work alongside participants on:
- Reading the activities section the way admissions officers actually read it — what gets seen, what gets skipped, what gets remembered
- Moving from "member of" to "led a project that" — with concrete before-and-after rewrites
- Framing experiences that don't look like traditional extracurriculars — family responsibilities, paid work, independent projects, caring for siblings — as the genuine skills they are
- Avoiding the patterns that consistently weaken otherwise strong applications
