When it comes to sending "extras" with your app, you might want to think twice.

Don’t be lured into one of the biggest psychological traps in the college application form—supplementary material. This fairly standard invitation to submit extra work implies that there’s more that can be done to influence the individual admissions decision. It may subtly
pressure your child to come up with creative things to send that are not appropriate. A student may not feel he has done all he can without sending “something.”

Convince your child (and yourself) that simply crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s on the application is all that is required; it is really true. A good applicant is admitted based on the regular criteria. Your child gets full credit for all the activities listed on the application—admissions officers know how to interpret them by the time commitment and length of commitment—and frankly, if your child is committed to an activity, his degree of talent (even if zero) doesn’t matter.

If, in spite of this assurance, your child feels he must submit supplementary material, make sure it isn’t covered in the following list:

• Doodled drawings, if art is a hobby

• Full scientific papers. Give the summary elsewhere in the application.

• CD’s of music, unless your child is truly a prodigy

• Anything edible

• Anything requiring assembly or explanation