How to stand out beyond debate and volunteering

Debate and general community service show up on an enormous share of college and scholarship applications, and that's not a reason to avoid them. It's a reason to take them a step further than most applicants do.

Advocacy is the natural extension of debate. The skills are the same, argument, research, persuasion, but instead of practicing them in a round, apply them to something you actually believe in and try to change something in your city or school.

Student journalism or freelancing works the same way for service. Plenty of students volunteer at a weekly trash pickup, but writing a column for your local paper or keeping a short blog about the work is what shows initiative rather than attendance.

Digital design is a third route. You can volunteer at an animal shelter, or you can take it further and design the posters that help the shelter raise more in donations and funding.

Every activity reads differently depending on the rest of your story, so none of this is a formula. But it rarely hurts to ask whether there's a version of what you're already doing that goes one step past what everyone else submits.