Blocking on the Brag Sheet

Hi everyone,

I’m trying to fill out the parent brag sheet on naviance. They want anecdotes from her childhood and from high school. For some reason, I’m drawing a blank. Do you have any suggestions for what kind of stories would be useful? Are there attributes that are more worth highlighting? Should I focus on academic Passion? Personal attributes like kindness? I feel a lot of pressure on this since it is the only way her GC will know her to write about her. How do you sum up your kid in just a few lines???

Anecdotes from childhood?
Only if they are super-relevant. So for example, our brag sheet asked what our child’s outstanding accomplishment was during the past three or four years. He’d been one of small group that took AP World History as a sophomore and one of the few to get a 5 on the test. I mentioned that he’d had a lifelong interest in history that dated back to before he could read on his own and that even when he played computer games like Civilization he always read all the historical notes that came with them.

I also mentioned the cooking club his friends had one summer where they all got together and cooked for each other once a week.

And I also talked about his interest in origami and how he was selling his earrings at a local gallery and at local craft fairs.

I didn’t try to focus on any one thing. I talked about both academic and non-academic things and both things done at school and not at school.

I didn’t have to do that for my daughter (the school had her fill out a 12 page document herself) but I would think if there is anything that she’s been involved in/passionate her whole life may be worth mentioning.

What is your child interested in now? What might they want to major in? Are there any stories related to that?

Was there a time they showed leadership?

Was there a time they showed compassion?

Was there a time they showed good character?

I think I might think about what overall “Story” you want the colleges to know about your child.

While I agree that you should include anything that you think will be the overall story about your child, at the point where I was filling out this form, I didn’t really know what story my son would be telling yet. The GC’s piece is probably the least important part of the application - the teacher recommendations are much more important - so I figured if they wanted to include a fun fact or two all to the good.

I don’t recall that our GC wrote anything personal about either of our kids…and certainly nothing that happened before she met them in 9th grade.

We had started a word doc with each of our kids at the end of 8th grade where we listed all the activities, and their duration during each school year. We gave that to the GC. It included both in and out of school activities.

Our son was a musician. He had a resume plus a sheet of all of his music festivals. The GC was given that as well.

But the GC didn’t want anything prior to High School…and really…that made every bit of sense…the GC did not know our kids before that time. Frankly, she barely knew them in HS.

The reason I ask about anecdotes from childhood is that that is what the form asks for. They want a story from elementary or middle school and from high school that show her character. There is a spot where I can also share anything else I want them to know. I think @bopper 's suggestions are helpful. Thanks.

You can use this to show another side of your child as well, lot of kids are pretty serious at this time of their life, The GC knows the academic, school ECs that the student has done. Something with emotion, humor could work.

We created brag sheets for our kids, not because sheets were requested or required but because we wanted to provide some concrete markers for the letter-writers and counselors at their school to refer to. School records alone (beyond the transcript) may provide scant evidence for letter-writers to use, especially about extracurricular and off-campus achievements and awards.

So the main goal was to list the important awards and achievements. For our older child these centered on math (and math competitions), debate, and journalism, in all of which he’d won “off campus” (including statewide) awards. For the youngest these focused on art, for which she had won competitive awards in exhibitions at art galleries.

The main goal was to highlight EXTRA-curricular initiatives and achievements. These included lists of memberships (including leadership) and programs they’d participated in (debate camps, summer off-campus art programs), but the lists highlighted awards and external recognition of their activities.

One result was that our daughter’s name was called out for commendation by the principal at her high school graduation (she’d just won a prize in our city), and the principal mentioned that he wanted to be sure that this kind of achievement would be recognized by posting student art work in the school hallways – just like they do for athletic teams and championships. It turned out, however, that the most recent prize our daughter had won was for a nude self-portrait. So . . . despite the achievement . . . no images were posted in the hallways or the school boardroom.

Oh man oh man, GJ. If you’re at one of those big hs where the GC doesn’t know kids, please be careful about feeding anecdotes from childhood,. Think about what an adcom would want to read. That’s about her in the last two years, maybe some refs back to 9th.

The GC letter does matter. The fact that many GC go off brag sheets and end up rehashing the EC list or awards doesn’t change that. You hope for something that brings a kid to light, in ways that college looks for and cares about. Not another resume. Not generic (smiles and says hello.)

Regardless of being asked for kiddie stuff, I’d go for savvy.

I would focus not only on what you write, but how you write it. I’ve learned from years and years of my own performance self-reflections in a corporate environment (many, many bosses) that stuff will be lifted verbatim. I have no doubt that busy guidance/college counselors will choose to do the same.

@lookingforward. I believe the GC will write his letter entirely from info that we supply. He has no other way of knowing my daughter. Her teachers are an entirely different matter. She has excellent relationships with a few who do know her well.

I would never have thought to include anecdotes from childhood, but the form specifically asks for them. One spot for elementary/middle school and another questions specifically about anecdotes from high school. Its much harder then I would have thought to come up with the right stories to truly represent who she is.

Regardless that it asks, you don’t want that in the gc LoR. Right now, I’m thinking it’s a lame attempt to try to “know” her some depth about your girl. You’ll need to filter. I’d be tempted to go with a relevant skill that matters to the colleges, not an anecdote.
E.g., in MS, developed her love of reading, opted for the challenging math track, developed her interest in robotics. Think along late hs lines.

You can talk about some of that teacher feedback. Sci teacher praises her xxx, math yyy. Form a picture. Curious, stretches, liked.

“I would never have thought to include anecdotes from childhood, but the form specifically asks for them. One spot for elementary/middle school and another questions specifically about anecdotes from high school. Its much harder then I would have thought to come up with the right stories to truly represent who she is.”

Well that’s actually to help you, because every parent is going to say, my kid was a genius at age 5, and led this activity at age 7, and at age 10 solved world hunger. Anecdotes force you to give examples, as LF posted, needing to show learning and curiosity. It kind of humanizes the kid a little, something like, my kid hated going to the doctor when she was younger, and now she wants to be a doctor, who would have known!

It may also be that some of that is for the guidance counselor’s reference when it comes to senior Awards night and other events like that not just College letters

Agree that early childhood achievements COULD be relevant, especially if there are awards for competitions, commendations of achievement or public service, extra-curricular (extra-school, perhaps community) recognition of some kind. Not just parental anecdotes like “D was a reader at age 4.” But you can think fairly broadly on this as a way to supplement the more quantitative and widely recognized achievements. I never listed that I was the chosen “flag monitor” who led my class to the playground in fire drills in elementary school. But that may have presaged some achievements I had in high school, in which I was won the scholar-athlete award.

Our kids graduated from a huge school - 1400 in senior class. The counselors knew my kids by name and grades but not by character or accomplishments. I started the “parent brag sheet” not on Naviance but as a list of that things that made me really proud or me smile about my child. I also looked at photos to help me remember activities and files of their awards/notes from teachers. I even looked at old e-mails that teachers had sent. I thought of friendships and extra curricular that they went above and beyond. I also asked Grandparents that have spent lots of time with the girls anything special they remember about them Our list was disorganized but had notes about specific examples. After we made a list, we were able to identify the strengths and examples that would be worthy to share with the GC.

As @doschicos suggested above… I tried to write in an engaging writing style so that it would be (I hoped) irresistible for the guidance counselor to lift my best lines verbatim. I wrote honest, sometimes funny, anecdotes that illustrated the characteristics that define my son in my eyes, and that I thought were consistent with the way he was portraying himself to admissions as well.

This was how my son was introduced to the guidance counselor, but then she ended up having her own anecdote to add to her writing, because when they met, she asked my son a question about something I had written and he ended up chatting with her about one of his intellectual interests and even showing her something online to teach her about it. They had a nicely interactive session together.

I did not list his achievements. He did that in his resume. I just helped portray him as a full human being for the guidance counselor, and through her, to the admissions officers.

Just like in the common app essay, the goal is not to regurgitate info available elsewhere in the application, but rather to humanize the applicant. No lists, no bragging about accomplishments… just a glimpse into his thinking and personality. It is nice for admissions officers to feel they somewhat know the applicant as a person, and they find that person’s personality appealing.

"Agree that early childhood achievements COULD be relevant, especially if there are awards for competitions, commendations of achievement or public service, extra-curricular (extra-school, perhaps community) recognition of some kind. "

If colleges cared about accomplishments that happened back when kids were 12, 13, 14 years old or younger, they’d ask for it and provide space to list it. But they don’t which tells you something.

I don’t think it has to do with accomplishments but some activities children maintain through their entire lives. My daughter started playing piano at age 4, composing by age 9. It definitely shaped her music path, not as an intended major, but as a huge part of her EC life. Her 8 years of dance helped with theater. She also started STEM camps and programs around age 8 (her choosing, not mine) which is turning out to be her intended major.