Last week I showed you what goes on a brag sheet — the one-page summary teachers write recommendation letters from. So many of you replied LETTERS that this issue almost wrote itself.
Here's the half nobody covers: what to leave off.
The GPA and the test scores.
They're already in the file the college reads. When the brag sheet repeats them, the teacher repeats them — and a letter that restates the transcript is a wasted letter. The letter's whole job is to say what the numbers can't.
The four-page life story.
Some websites recommend a full resume plus essays plus a childhood timeline. A busy teacher writing thirty letters skims page one and stops. One page is not the minimum. It is the maximum.
The activities the teacher never saw.
Your teen's travel team matters — on the Common App, where it has its own slot. The brag sheet for the chemistry teacher should be heavy on chemistry-class moments, because that is the only place that teacher is believable.
Anything the parent wrote.
Teachers can tell. Readers can tell. The voice on that page has to be seventeen, not forty-five. Help your teen brainstorm out loud — then leave the room while they type.
And the word "passionate."
It appears on every brag sheet in America, which means it says nothing. A specific moment does the work the adjective can't.
Swap this: "I'm passionate about biology." For this: "After our enzyme lab failed, I redid it at home with grocery-store pineapple and brought you the data on Monday."
This weekend: your teen takes the three moments they drafted last week and runs them against this list. Cut anything a teacher didn't witness, anything the transcript already says, and every adjective doing a moment's job.
Working on it right now? Post the before-and-after in First in Class — my free community — and get honest mom eyes before it goes to school. Join free
P.S. Reply ESSAY and next Saturday I'll answer the question I hear most in September: "My teen has no idea what to write about."