<p>I've been wondering how much of an edge it gives you in getting into a highly selective school if you have developed some kind of uniqueness in your application. I don't mean uniqueness just by your personality or essay; I mean something like winning a Science Olympiad, donating thousands of dollars to a charity, or being a prodigy in music or academics, etc. It is doing something which most of the other applicants probably haven't done</p>
<pre><code> An average applicant to Harvard or MIT probably has a great GPA and SAT scores, a good amount of extra-curriculars, and well-written essays. But does developing the "uniqueness" truly give them the edge in the admission process?
For me, I tried to present myself as unique in my application by building an education based website. It's a project I have been working on for a few months. It's a website where I give math tutorials online and post numerous practice problems with answers. It has been fairly successful, and I've gotten around 50 e-mails from strangers who found it helpful.
I'm applying to a few high-ranked schools this December, so I will use my website as something to distinguish me from other applicants.
Is a uniqueness of doing something different what takes a person from a good applicant to the definite one?
</code></pre>