Passion projects give students the opportunity to gain new skills, cultivate greater confidence, develop leadership skills, and pursue extracurricular interests in-depth in an independent setting. The key to designing a meaningful passion project is to find something that you are genuinely excited about. In other words, don’t just do something because you think it’ll look impressive. Colleges want to gain a better understanding of who you are and what you care about. So pick a project that aligns with your interests, skills, and values.
What is a passion project?
So, before we get too far ahead of ourselves, what is a passion project, anyway? Passion projects for high schoolers are self-directed projects that are completed outside of the classroom. These projects give students meaningful opportunities to learn new skills, gain confidence, develop leadership skills, and explore extracurricular interests in depth.
Passion projects can be about anything and are only limited by your imagination and overall sense of ambition. For example, starting a nonprofit in high school is a great passion project example. Overall, the best passion projects require significant planning and take place over a long period of time. This is why pursuing a passion project can be a great way to spend your summers in high school.
Motivated high schoolers may choose to pursue a passion project because they are a great way to showcase your strengths, passions, values, and extracurricular interests in your college applications. This can be especially helpful if you want to attend a highly-selective college or university, such as an Ivy League school.
Why do college admissions officers value passion projects?
Now that we’ve answered the question “what is a passion project for students?” let’s focus on the benefits of completing a high school passion project.
College admissions officers place a lot of value on passion projects for students. Passion projects demonstrate curiosity, passion, creativity, initiative, ambition, and strong organizational and time management skills. Ultimately, this is why completing a passion project is a great way to Stand Out in College Applications. Remember, top colleges want to admit passionate, capable students eager to make a difference by enriching their respective communities. Passion projects can communicate all of these things in your college applications.
If you’re interested in learning more about pursuing worthwhile extracurricular activities, check out our articles: Best Extracurricular STEM Activities for the Biology Applicant and Best Extracurricular Activities for Students Interested in the Arts.
Questions to help you brainstorm
Consider the following questions to help you brainstorm and get started. Remember, a passion project for high schoolers requires a lot of planning and self-reflection, so you’ll want to proceed thoughtfully:
List of passion project ideas
A passion project can be about anything! This is why looking at student passion project examples can help jumpstart your own brainstorming process. Consider some of the passion project examples listed below to help you narrow down your interests and help give you a sense of direction:
Give back to your community
Share your skills with others
Conduct your own research project
Build something
Go on an adventure
Learn a new skill
Organize a community project
Help others
Start a business
Pursue a creative project
Write something
5 Tips to help you get started
Knowing how to start a passion project can feel overwhelming. After all, one of the defining features of a passion project is that it is an ambitious project that takes a long time to complete. A passion project isn’t something you can do in a week or even a month. The best projects take place over several months, maybe even an entire year.
Write a mission statement
After you’ve spent some time brainstorming and have come up with the initial idea for your passion project, you’ll want to come up with a mission statement. This will help you stay on track so you can meet your long-term goals. Take your time during this process. You’ll want to come up with a mission statement that is well-defined, meaningful, and that will ultimately help inspire you to reach your goals.
Identify necessary resources
Identify resources you’ll need to get started. These could be physical resources (such as paint to make a community mural) or more abstract resources like donors, mentors, or expertise on a certain subject.
If you want to start your own business, reach out to local entrepreneurs to see if you can sit down with them and ask them some questions. If you want to teach music lessons to disadvantaged youth, reach out to local schools and community centers to see if they have a space you can use; you may also want to seek out donors and sponsors to help cover the cost of instrument rentals.
Make a list of manageable short-term goals
Make a list of manageable short-term goals. This will help you make meaningful strides towards your larger, more long-term goals. Ideally having a list of manageable short-term goals will help give you the forward momentum you need!
Find mentors
Find mentors who can help you reflect on your goals and progress. While your high school passion project should be an independent project, you’ll want to have people you can turn to when you get stuck or need a nudge in the right direction.
Have a well-defined long-term goal
As previously mentioned, the best passion projects for high schoolers are fairly ambitious. That means that you should have a meaningful and well-defined long-term goal. It’s all about how you frame your project. For example, riding your bike across the country is an impressive goal! But try to take it a step further: What if you use your trip to raise money and awareness for homeless shelters? And what if, on your trip, you volunteer at different homeless shelters across the country? This is a great example of an ambitious and thoughtful passion project, one that’ll be sure to impress colleges.
Similarly, learning how to speak a new language is a great goal. But again, what if you took it a step further? What if you volunteered to teach English to refugees in your community in exchange for some language lessons of your own?
Key takeaways and moving forward
Passion projects are great ways to develop new skills while gaining confidence and leadership skills. The best passion projects are thoughtful and interdisciplinary in some way. In other words, there should be several levels of meaning involved in your project. College admissions officers want to admit passionate and motivated students, capable of enacting real change. Completing a high school passion project is a great way to demonstrate this potential. For more information about passion projects, check out our article, The Ultimate Guide to Passion Projects for High Schoolers.
If you have other college-related questions, check out some more of our blog posts, such as: How to Write a Personal Statement with An Example That Worked and How Important Are Volunteer Hours for College Applications?.
Passion projects are great ways to develop new skills while gaining confidence and leadership skills. The best passion projects are thoughtful and interdisciplinary in some way. In other words, there should be several levels of meaning involved in your project. College admissions officers want to admit passionate and motivated students, capable of enacting real change. Completing a high school passion project is a great way to demonstrate this potential. For more information about passion projects, check out our article, The Ultimate Guide to Passion Projects for High Schoolers.
If you have other college-related questions, check out some more of our blog posts, such as: How to Write a Personal Statement with An Example That Worked and How Important Are Volunteer Hours for College Applications?.
