My mom really wants me to make a website and put all of my accomplishment on there to then somehow submit to colleges in my application. Is that too strange, or do people actually do that? Should I do it or should I not??!
Is there information you’d include that is substantially more interesting and more important than what other students would include in their applications and that can only be told with a website? If not, don’t do it. Some admissions officers may look at your site but other likely won’t. The result could be that admissions could see very little of your accomplishments if you don’t duplicate what’s on the Common App and annoy the admissions committee if you do duplicate it.
Schools are pretty clear about what they want. They don’t have time to go through a lot of supplementary materials.
You should fill out the information on the application. Few admissions officers are going to click through a link. If something is important to you, list it on the application.
Maybe if you want to demonstrate a particular talent such as gymnastics, music, other sports (this is done often for recruited football players), singing or other demonstrable skills & talents, but I would not recommend it for simply listing one’s accomplishments in a resume/CV style.
My kid has had his own website for a few years. Nowadays he uses it more as a blog but before it was a combination of chess analysis of games he had played or simply wanted to talk about, tech reviews, and programming techniques. So sure, why not? Website hosting and getting a domain name is cheap.
That’s not what the OP is asking though. His/her potential website is basically a Linkedin profile. Certainly if an applicant does things with website development, s/he can include the link as part of listing the ECs.
The real question is what a website is going to add to the application that can’t be shown elsewhere in the application. There are circumstances where it makes sense to add a supplement. Publisher mentioned some of them-sports films, arts supplements, music supplements. Schools also sometimes also allow kids to submit a video and in some cases it makes sense to submit a CV if the student has done published research. However colleges are usually clear about what they want and to whom it should go. Creating a website to tout accomplishment that most people would list on the application is unlikely to be seen as a positive. The admissions committee may simply see it as evidence that you are undisciplined and can’t follow directions, like an applicant who submits a 1200 word essay instead of sticking to a 500 word essay limit.
It sounds like your mom is trying to help you find a way to differentiate yourself among the sea of applicants. It’s a nice impulse but you may want to remind her of the admissions saw, “The thicker the file, the thicker the applicant.”
Ok, I interpreted the OP post as that s/he wanted to build a website that would show that this person had the talent to build a website and do neat things with it. Because otherwise, one could simply use LinkedIn or something similar and just list the resume.
Isn’t this what ZeeMee was supposed to do? A few schools had an option to link to a ZeeMee page, when my daughter applied. She didn’t do it, since everything was covered in the application itself.