How to teach students to quantify their activities – and why

“To write an effective Common App activity description or create a CV that stands out, you need to quantify your activities.”

The class looks perplexed, as expected. The words “quantify” and “activities” have probably never occurred in the same sentence for them before. 

I then give them a sample activity description: “Instead of just saying ‘I led the student newspaper,’ how about saying ‘Under my leadership, the student newspaper grew 100 per cent, from 10 to 20 contributors in one academic year. I facilitated more than 30 weekly meetings, edited 100+ articles, and managed three student section editors.’ How does that sound?” 

Now I can see gears clicking and lightbulbs going on. Doing this for their university applications will probably be the first of many times they’ll describe their past activities and set future goals in clear, metrics-driven language. 

However, I also can’t help wincing slightly inside. This is also the start of analysing activities previously driven by pure fun and passion, now dissected under an incisive numerical lens, laid out for the world to see. 

Why quantification is essential 

Quantifying activities and achievements is an incredibly important employability skill. It’s very likely that the student will have to do this throughout their career, polishing their achievements and accounting for their responsibilities in CVs and interviews for future jobs. And it’s a fitting skill for a college counsellor to teach as students prepare for their university applications. 

It provides concrete evidence 

Numbers lend authenticity to claims. When we describe an activity or an achievement with metrics, the subjective claim is transformed into an objective accomplishment. It’s much easier to claim “I’ve been a leader” than “I’ve been editor-in-chief of the student newspaper for three consecutive semesters, under which the membership grew by 40 per cent.” People trust the credibility of the latter statement more.

It demonstrates scale and tells a story

Numbers demonstrate scale. Did you lead a team of five or 10 or 50? This gives valuable context that the admissions officer (or hiring manager later in your career) can use to assess your achievement.  

Beyond that, it clearly shows that there’s a story waiting to be told behind each carefully documented activity. For instance, “I led a mathematics team of five members through a series of three rounds of a competition, culminating in a third place in the international round out of more than 50 teams participating” already spins a narrative that a vague statement of “I competed in mathematics competitions” would never tell. 

It’s necessary for an application to stand out 

In a sea of “captain of the debate team”, the student who “led the debate team to its first state championship in five years, coaching 12 novices and achieving a 75 per cent win rate in regional tournaments” will be the one that catches the admissions officer’s eye. 

It can help identify patterns

When students start quantifying their activities, they might notice a pattern, which they can use to help set goals for themselves. For example, a student might notice that all her leadership roles are in vice-presidency roles. She might come to the conclusion that she loves being in the support role, or use this as motivation to try for a presidency role next time. Or a student might notice that all his activities are only a semester long – which can then be translated into a resolve to try them out for at least a whole academic year. 

How to teach quantification of activities and goals 

This is a perfect skill for a college and careers counsellor to teach because it’s useful for university and job applications. 

1. Quantifying past activities

Leadership: number of members (consistently maintained or increased), number of events organised, number of attendees

Public relations: number of people reached, area covered

Entrepreneur/fundraising: number of products sold, amount of funds raised, months engaged in activity

Competitions: awards won, percentile rank in sample of test takers, number of contestants

However, you can also think about it in terms of prompts. Here are some examples. 

Scale: how many (members, attendees, dollars raised, people managed)?

Frequency: how often? (For example, hours per week, weeks per year, events organised)

Improvement: By how much did you improve something? (for example, increased membership by X per cent, improved test scores by Y points, grew social media followers by Z per cent)

Rank: did you finish first out of 30 teams? Were you ranked in the top five per cent? 

Efficiency: did you make something faster, cheaper or better? Did you streamline the process? Or reduce time spent by X hours per week?

2. Quantifying future goals 

Alternatively, you can actually set more effective goals if you quantify them. By setting goals with the SMART framework, you’re effectively doing this. This article explains this in further detail. 

Here’s an example: 

Specific: not “I want to help people” but “I want to start a coding club for middle-school girls, collaborating with the computer-science teacher”.

Measurable: “With a goal of recruiting at least 10 members in the first semester”.

Achievable: given your resources and time, you can assess whether this is achievable or not.

Relevant: it aligns with my passion for computer science and education.

Time-bound: “I will host a demo day for parents by the end of the spring semester”.

3. Using AI

AI can be a really helpful partner to help students to quantify their activities. Here’s a sample prompt you can suggest your students use:

“Act as an expert college application adviser. Your task is to help me, a high school student, create powerful and truthful descriptions of my extracurricular activities by focusing on impact and quantification.

My goal is to use this for my Common App activities section/scholarship essay/interview preparation. 

Please guide me through the following process:

1. First, ask me three to five specific questions about one of my activities. Ask about things like scale, frequency, improvements and responsibilities.
2. Based on my answers, generate two to three bullet points that describe my role using clear, honest metrics.
3. Finally, remind me that these numbers should evidence my genuine passion and that I should avoid inflating any figures.

I will start by telling you the name of my first activity. Let’s begin.”