I am an avid writer and I am close to completing the first draft of my first novel. I’ve been writing and telling stories for about as long as I can remember and I currently stand as a lower classman, so if publishing the novel does take an even longer amount of time, I know that the publication will be on my college aps. Now what I wonder is how much will this publication influence my chances of getting into a top school.
Publishing (especially e-books) is easy. Sales from those books would be more impressive.
It is a perfectly solid EC. It won’t move the needle at tippy top schools without impressive sales figures, though.
I wrote a book and put it on my college applications. I definitely think it helped me because I got into UCLA and USC-- my scores were OK, nothing special, (1400), and I didn’t send in any subject tests. My AP scores were 4s and one 5, but I did have a high GPA of 4.5.
If the book is self-published it will not mean much for admissions – self-publishing speaks to the fact that you have enough money to self-publish but it doesn’t say anything about the quality of the book. If, however, your book is accepted by a major publishing house, if you are paid for the rights to the book, and if it sells well then it would be a boost for college admissions.
The influence will come with how you relate the experience in the application process. A college application is all about putting together the story of you. So your application can tell the story of how your passion for writing led to a full length novel. Whether it was published commercially or online will be less important than what you say about how the experience shaped you.
Many students applying to top schools struggle to come up with a narrative and end up with a disjointed list of grade and award grubbing. They apply to “top schools” simply for the prestige. You are in a good position to avoid that trap and you also have time to find schools that will be great fits for you as a writer…hint: you many not have even heard of the very best ones yet.
There’s no getting around it, just writing isn’t an “it.” Nor is making a few dollars. It would need to get major attention In important circles, for the quality.
At this point, OP has no idea if it’s good (beyond friends and family) or marketable. I don’t think he or she even knows how hard it is to get published by a respected house.
I would not recommend writing about it in the app.
its a great thing irrespective of whether you publish it or not…if you think about it how few people make it on a commercial level in publishing even later in life so just even trying this is very impressive in my view
If you get it sold to a reputable publishing house and it comes out on the national market, that will be impressive. However, the odds of an unsolicited manuscript being accepted by one of the big houses is lower than Stanford’s acceptance rate.
Writing is a great extracurricular, and finishing what you write is rarer than you think. I think you should keep on writing as you clearly enjoy it. But don’t bank your future on just the writing. Make sure you have other arrows for your bow.
With the advent of self publishing, it’s far less of a big deal than it perhaps once was-- anyone can get a book published.
But your writing skills may help you get some scholarships that tie in to essays-- start now to find some that interest you!