How to Increase Your Profile Completeness
By Sarah H on Updated:
Increasing your profile completeness percentage is easy! This quick guide will lead you through it step by step.
How It Works
There are 3 main sections of your profile that you’ll want to fill out: Top Summary, About Me, and Life Story.
Your profile completeness is not determined by how many activities you do. Instead, it’s based on how many details you share for each of the activities you enter. So whenever you add a new entry, make sure to fill out each field, add an external link, upload a PDF or Word file, and add an image to that entry.
Let’s take these 3 sections one by one.
- Top Summary This is where you can upload a series of pictures and write an introduction about yourself in your own words. The Top Summary is the first thing about you that reviewers see, so spend a little time here thinking about the message you would like to communicate. Share your hobbies, your passions, your dreams and goals, and something you recently accomplished, created, or made an impact on that you are proud of. To increase completeness, you need to add at least 3 images and a few sentences into each of these fields:
- Images (at least 3)
- Who Am I
- Hobbies
- Something I’m Proud of
To add photos, click the black + sign in the top right hand corner. You need to add at least 3 to increase your completeness percentile, but you can add as many more as you like.
- About Me The About Me section is designed to help you get connected with colleges and universities who are looking for students just like you. Colleges and universities are interested in creating well-rounded freshman classes which include students from many different types of families and backgrounds. Therefore, filling out each field in this section helps colleges find you. Enter your information in each of these fields: Basic Info There are 8 fields to complete in your Basic Info section.
- Contact number (this is your telephone number)
- Address
- Birthday
- Gender
- Languages Known
- Race/Ethnicity
- Religious Affiliation
- Citizenship
Family Info Enter names and contact information for each of your parents and siblings. You’ll want to include information on the highest level of education that your parents attained, your household income, and the names of each of your siblings. Complete each field in order to both increase your profile completeness and to help more colleges find you based on your unique family characteristics. This information is completely secure and private and is never shared, even when you share your profile.
- Life Story Your Life Story is where you get to share all the skills and experiences you’ve had that make you the special person that you are. This section is designed to encompass your whole life, both inside and outside of school. Recruiters, admissions officers, and hiring managers really want to know who you are – authentically and holistically. This is where you tell them! There are 7 categories within your Life Story:
- AcademicsSupplemental LearningSummer ActivitiesMusic & ArtsSportsVolunteeringInternship & Work Experience
In each category, create at least one entry and fill out every field. This includes basic info like the name of the school you attend or the name of the sports team you play on, but also the Awards & Achievements, Summary, and External Links fields. These fields are for you to further describe and illustrate the experience or project. Enter a few sentences in both the Awards & Achievements field and the Summary field, and at least one link in the External Link field. The link could be to a YouTube or Vimeo video or a website about your project. Adding pictures and videos is a great way to illustrate your skills – let reviewers see you making that game-winning catch or performing a beautiful piece of music at your recital!- Attach at least one document (such as a PDF file of an award you won, a Word document describing a project you did or a paper you wrote) and one picture for each entry.Here’s a great way to increase your score: receiving recommendations from teachers or coaches gives you a big bump up. These can be your teachers at school, or private teachers or coaches. Receiving a recommendation is also a great way to validate the skills and experiences listed in your profile.
To request a recommendation, click the blue “Request A Recommendation” button on the left-hand sidebar. After that, a pop-up box will appear where you can enter your teacher’s name and email address. Then click “send,” and your teacher will receive an email with instructions on submitting your recommendation. Once submitted, the recommendation will appear in your profile under the activity you selected.
In addition, you can create multiple entries within a category. For example, if you play both football and baseball in the Sports category, you should create separate entries for each sport. To improve your completeness score, fill out every field in each entry. Also, upload both a document and a picture for every sport you list.
Finally, you are all set. Thanks for reading!