The first written communication to the dean of college admissions will be your application. Writing your application is a major opportunity to distinguish yourself—to document your clarity, creativity, and competence. Let me tell you why. Your college applications can be as creative as your essay. College admissions deans read thousands of applications, so yours has to stand out.

The dean is looking for a freshman class that provides the college with high energy leadership in intellectual curiosity, publications, music, student government, athletics, creative thinking, and the arts. The dean is reading your application to evaluate if you are going to be a good match for his college and provide his community with any of those leadership categories he is seeking. Let’s take a closer look at the steps you must take in preparing your applications.

When you look at the various applications that you have to complete, you’re likely to think that it looks time consuming and very boring to fill in all of those questions over and over again. It certainly doesn’t look like the document that is going to get you in—and that’s my point! Here’s your chance to get an edge on those thousands of dull applications that all look alike and that the deans fall asleep reading. And here’s how: You are going to be creative with that boring application. There are a lot of places on an application where you can distinguish yourself. One rule is not to leave anything blank. If a question is not relevant, draw a little line in the space, so the dean knows you saw the question.

The question the college is trying to get at here is how you spend your time outside of school work. The dean wants to know about your leadership and involvement, and how much time you spend in that activity. Take the time to figure it out. American college deans are always trying to measure character. Looking at how you spend your time and what you value gives them their measure of you.

If you have a passion for theatre rather than fill in all the columns as found on the application, use that space to do your own thing: Write a few sentences describing the roles you played and the plays you were in. When you are writing about your activities, think about what message you are giving. You’re good? How good? You run? How fast? You play? What level of music do you play? How much time did you spend in sports, on publications, in the performing arts? Specifics are what you are after. Which position do you play and how good is the team? How many goals did you score? You write? Where were you published? Has your school paper won any national awards? Specificity is what is needed to show how you stand out from all the other qualified applicants.

Use the application to write what you are crazy about, and something you haven’t written about in your essay. In other words, use the application questions as guidelines, not as rigid categories where you have to put exactly what they ask for.Tune in next week with more on writing the application. In the meantime, send in your application questions and any college admissions questions to blog address.