Parents of high schoolers, this is for you! Non-sporty teens and student-athletes alike know they have to be highly involved in their community in order to score those coveted college acceptance letters. Keeping a running log of their sports and hobbies will help them exponentially down the road.

Competitive colleges look for active students, and most require proof of activities, community service, sports, and extracurriculars. If your student is college-bound – whether homeschooled or not – write down everything they do outside of school starting in grade nine, regardless if it is a favorite sport or something they try for a season. Buy a small notebook or create a dedicated computer file; list the activity and approximately how long and how many hours your teen pursues it.

To get started, think broadly and loosely about the list. Keep a casual running log of community service, paid jobs, hobbies, high school, travel, and recreational sports. Chess, knitting, horseback riding, babysitting, and surfing – plus endless more are all valuable activities. Our son loves to play basketball and golf, and he swims for fun. He does not play any of these sports for a school or travel team, but they count as interests, so we write them down as “recreational.”

Pro tip: The Common App (2023) asks for the five types of information for each activity below and can be repeated up to 20 times.

1. the type of activity and a 50-character description of the position or leadership role
2.  the name of the organization
3.  in 150 characters, describe the activity
4.  How many hours per week did the student do this activity
5.  How many weeks per year did the student do this activity

Many teens are involved in a lot more than just their ‘main’ sport in school. In addition to Model UN, International Debate, and working a retail job, our daughter was a dedicated high school sailor. As a homeschooler, she sailed for the local public high school and was team captain for two of her four high school varsity years. I knew she would be interested in college sailing, so I was committed to being prepared for her college applications with the details of her sport. I kept track of her regattas, coach commendations, and awards, along with conferences, clinics, and private lessons. I wrote down all the different types of boats she sailed on, her positions, and regatta locations.

In the fall of her junior year, she decided to try out for the school’s volleyball team with her friends. She loved it. Next, she wanted to learn how to play tennis, so we organized lessons. Knowing these were not “serious” sports for her, I still wrote down the details. Her interests later expanded to include weight training, yoga, pilates, and spin classes.

My original plan was to record her sailing-related teams and awards only. But with all the other activities added, her athletic profile became so much more interesting, especially when her high school volleyball team won the Division II State Championship!

As a result of our detailed record-keeping, Sophia was able to build an extensive student-athlete profile in her college applications. She also used her various activities to create an athletic resume for prospective coaches (*college coaches love multi-sport athletes). She realized the variety of her athletics showed passion, and this became the basis for one of her supplemental essays during college application season.

So, regardless of school or homeschool preference, parents of college-bound teens should have a system for recording student activities during high school; work as a team – most likely, you are the only one keeping these details.

Bottom line: As parents, we never know exactly what information will be needed later. But by recording this type of information in real-time, your student will be armed and ready with four years of scratch-pad detail of their educational, after-school, and athletic interests when the time comes –information that is difficult to reproduce years later. 

Likewise, we all know College Applications are much less stressful when the prep work is done. And please, don’t be one of those hands-off parents who insist their teens keep track of their own academic and sports history. They are busy doing the work, playing the sport, navigating hormones-friendships-teachers, parents-siblings-peer pressures, lack of sleep, lack of money, social media, chores-jobs-studying, and taking tests. It takes a minute to help an overwhelmed and busy kid prepare for their future, so why not do that?

❤️

©2024 Lynne Rey
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