The Official Guide to Passion Projects (Passion Optional)
Congratulations on your decision to develop a passion project, a choice that market research indicates will increase your chances of acceptance to elite institutions by approximately 38%. We’ve streamlined the traditionally lengthy and soul-searching passion acquisition process into this simple five-step guide, designed to maximize your return on investment while minimizing unnecessary emotional involvement. Get started today!
Step 1: Pick Your Passion
Every great passion project begins with a single decision: what interest will serve as your personal brand until the January before you graduate high school? Consider things you already enjoy, like film or baseball. If nothing comes to mind immediately, don’t panic; your goal right now isn’t self-discovery. Pick a topic aligned with your intended college major, or for maximum originality points, something delightfully random, like chickens.
While passion projects can technically be anything, the most compelling ones are those that elegantly bridge personal interest with charitable impact, producing what we like to call a “win-win optics scenario”. When choosing the community you’ll use as a backdrop for your initiative, geography is irrelevant; proximity, familiarity, and experience are all optional. Any place that photographs well, say Haiti or Vietnam, will do nicely.
Step 2: Establish Your Brand Identity
Your project is only as real as it looks. That means you need a brand, and for that, you need a name. We suggest following the proven formula: [Plural Noun] + [Preposition] + [Abstract Concept]. Examples of successful implementations include Voices of Tomorrow, Teens for Trees, and Youth Towards Justice. The key is achieving that delicate balance between earnestness and forgettability.
Next, you’ll need to create a digital footprint that signals legitimacy to admissions officers conducting their standard Google background checks. Find a professional-looking website template from Wix or Weebly and establish the three essential tabs: Home, About, Contact.
The Home page should be roughly 70% aesthetically pleasing stock images and 30% mission statement, sprinkled with buzzwords that suggest purpose, leadership, and forward-thinking vision. On the About page, include your name, school, and a professional photo so visitors can’t possibly mistake your project for someone else’s. The Contact page should have your email address with a simple “Send me a message” prompt. Don’t worry too much about checking it regularly; our data shows that fewer than 2% of visitors click on it anyways.
Step 3: Generate the Numbers
Colleges love to see that you’re not just passionate but making a quantifiable difference, which means you’ll need to curate metrics that demonstrate your commitment to the cause. The most efficient and time-tested way to do this is by raising awareness. A quick online search will provide all the statistics you need—repackaged into professionally designed infographics, they instantly signify research competency and subject matter expertise. Each post and each follower equals another unit of measurable impact, so maintain a consistent upload schedule to build your application-ready data set.
To strengthen your profile further, we recommend incorporating a fundraising component. Over the course of your project, organize a couple of accessible, high-visibility initiatives: bake sales, clothing drives, raffles. Whether you raise $27 or $2700, what truly matters are the photos, preferably of you posing with a donation box or a group of children. Always ensure that you’re right in the center of the frame, where no one can miss you.
If you’re low on time, an alternate option is to simply create a GoFundMe link and send it to your parents. They’ll forward it to their colleagues, your grandparents to their bridge club, and within 48 hours, you’ll have raised several hundred dollars without leaving your house—yet another impressive statistic you can plaster across your website and/or social media page in big, bold font.
Step 4: Resume-fy Your Project
Now comes the most important skill you’ll develop during your high school career: the ability to convert activities into resume language that accurately reflects their potential impact rather than their literal scope. This is an art form that requires practice, creativity, and an understanding of professional communication standards. Reference our approved translations as you begin crafting your descriptions:
“Started an Instagram account” → “Founded a digital advocacy platform to amplify marginalized voices”
“Held a bake sale” → “Coordinated grassroots fundraising efforts and community engagement”
“Tutored my neighbor’s kid” → “Developed community education program serving under-resourced youth”
“Emailed an organization twice (they never responded)” → “Established strategic nonprofit partnerships to maximize impact”
That tiny box on the Common Application is your closest ally in this process. At 150 characters, no one can ask follow-up questions or request elaboration. Use this to your advantage.
Step 5: Click Apply
At last, the final step, the moment all your strategic effort has been building up to. Copy-paste your project into the Activities section, upload your essays, and hit “Submit.” With this, your passion project has officially fulfilled its purpose.
From here, your project can gracefully enter what we call the “maintenance-free phase.” You can press pause on the biweekly Instagram posts. You can let your website domain expire in three months (college decisions will be out by then). You can safely cancel your Canva Pro subscription before it auto-renews one more time, costing you $14.99 that you’ll never get back.
As for the communities your project served, rest easy. They were honored to be included in your journey. In fact, you gave them something far more valuable than sustainable solutions or long-term support: a spot in a well-captioned photo on your homepage.
Take a moment to appreciate what you’ve built. You identified a cause, generated data, and crafted a narrative—all the elements of a successful passion project. Now, its legacy continues where it really matters. On your college application.