Part 2: (U)niqueness with LIPS — Keys to A Successful Passion Project
By Jeffrey Yu, Yale Class of 2023, Computer Science and East Asian Studies
This is part two of a series on LIPS, the four principles to developing a successful 20% project that is critical for college admissions. This article focuses on the fifth letter, U (unique). For more on the first four letters, see part 1.
For developing a unique project, I recommend one of two approaches:
(1) picking an interest that is nontraditional in itself.
For example, what if instead of creating the math nonprofit, the student was really passionate about beekeeping instead, and wanted to create a nonprofit that spreads awareness of the peril of beehives being destroyed? That in itself is really fascinating, as not many people are genuinely passionate or linked to that cause.
This is also where the upside down pyramid game distinguishes itself from the upright pyramid game. While there’s hundreds of math competitions of all forms and shapes, there’s almost certainly not that many beekeeping competitions. Despite this, through the upside pyramid game, beekeeping can become your edge, along with dozens of other nontraditional interests which might not be seen as beneficial towards college admissions.
(2) combining a traditional interest with a nontraditional one (aka interest + X).
Let’s say the student is genuinely passionate about computer science. Fair enough, lots of students are. We can give a project a bigger wow factor by finding something not related to math and make the project more unique. The more different and unexpected, the better. For example, take sports as an example. CS and sports — they’re not really that related, one is in the classroom, one is out in the field. But upon closer look and with a little thinking, maybe the two can be connected after all. For example, what if a student created an app or nonprofit that leveraged the power of computer science to aid sports? Say, creating an app that helps track game scores in high schools, or helps high school athletes track progress in their choice of sport, or uses mathematical models to predict recovery, whatever. The important thing is not in the two subjects, X and Y, but in how X and Y connect — that’s the unique part.
In general, the more unique the project, the bigger chance you’ll have in standing out in the admission office. You want to be remembered as the “X kid” with the project.
