Item saved to your backpack!

As part of her application to Tufts University in the fall of 2009, Amelia Downs recorded a video of herself demonstrating some dances she and some friends had invented to illustrate math terms.

That video, "Math Dances," now has over 150,000 views on YouTube--and Downs is part of Tufts' class of 2014.

Initially, Downs says, she decided to shoot the video just because it seemed like a simple, creative thing to do. "I was just so sick of writing by this point… I thought, 'A video? That seems easy enough--I could bang that out in an hour,'" she says. "So I called a friend, he got his camera out… and we just went to the park, filmed it, and it was done within a few hours."

Several colleges and universities now accept videos either as a supplement to an application or as a replacement for a written essay, including St. Mary's College of Maryland, the College of William & Mary, and George Mason University. A video is just one of many tools an applicant can use to help admissions committees get a better understanding of what he or she is really like.

Standing out in the crowd

Benjamin Toll, assistant director of admissions at St. Mary's College of Maryland, says that's really the aim--to get to know the applicant as a person, rather than just getting a writing sample. "As an individual admissions officer, I can't evaluate college-level writing as well as an English teacher--and lucky for me, [the applicant has] four years of English classes with grades," he says. "So we put a lot more trust into those grades, and instead see the essay as a way to dive into the individual person."

Toll says the most important thing to focus on in making a video is to share something honest about yourself. "We know you're a strong student--that's what your transcripts tell us, that's what your letters of recommendation tell us--so tell us about how strong a person you are, and help us understand that other side of you," he says. "That's really what we're trying to learn."

Still, Lisa Sohmer, director of college counseling at the Garden School in Jackson Heights, N.Y., says there are some potential pitfalls that students should keep in mind. "If students are using it as a substitute for a written essay, I don't think that they're giving the college the information that the college ultimately needs--I think colleges care about how students write. … And knowing the kind of things that students seem to think it's okay to put on Facebook, I'm a little concerned about the judgment thing," she says.

Best foot forward

As with Facebook posts, it's crucial to remember that the admissions committee's sense of humor may not be the same as yours. "I'm afraid that students are going to use the video presentation as a chance to be funny or clever, and if the person who's watching doesn't think it's funny, it's much worse than someone not agreeing with what you wrote in your essay," Sohmer says.

At the same time, Sohmer says video can be a very good fit in some situations. "I have always told promising athletes, get someone to roll a little video of you … and for students who are performers … if you've got a really great scene of yourself or something like that that you can show a college just to sort of fill you out, that's different," she says.

Rhaina Cohen, now part of Northwestern University's class of 2014, included a video called "In My Shoes" as part of her application to Tufts. "It gave me an opportunity to stand out and share something about myself that I wouldn't have been able to with just the traditional essays," she says.

And Cohen says she never really expected the video to make a huge difference in her application. "For me, it was about showing a more human element. … Students have a lot of talent and quirkiness that they wouldn't otherwise be able to exhibit, and it's just a vehicle to show that," she says.

Use good judgement

Wendy Livingston, senior assistant dean of admission at the College of William & Mary, says anyone who's considering submitting a video should show it to others before doing so. "Share your idea with a friend or a teacher or a guidance counselor and say, 'Is this something that, if you had never met me, you would want to learn about me?'… Use a sounding board of not only peers, but also of people in the profession," she says.

And make sure that whatever you submit shares something clear about you--a generic slideshow or a PowerPoint presentation isn't going to help your application. "The worst thing that any applicant can do is think that they're saying what somebody wants to hear… All we tell applicants is be yourself," Livingston says.

As a supplement to his application to George Mason University, Sean Tams submitted a YouTube video describing and illustrating his interests, including filmmaking, ping-pong, trombone, football--and watching television in a Snuggie.

For Tams, now a cinema major at Virginia Commonwealth University, submitting a video just seemed like a logical way to share his skills. "I'd always been very interested in working with video … and so when I saw that that was an option, I thought … it would help me to stand out from the pool of applicants," he says.

The most important thing to keep in mind, Tams says, is that your video doesn't have to be polished or professional-looking--the admissions committee isn't going to be evaluating your video's production values. "It's really all about the content," he says. "It's about the aspects of yourself that you get through to the audience through the video. So it's really not something to be intimidated by if you don't have experience doing it--and I think if it is an option and you're up for the creative challenge, it's definitely something worth doing."

For related articles and visuals from Schools.com, see:

• Five paths to a career-focused college education
• 10 great gadget gifts for grads
• How facebook is reshaping college admissions
• How college professors use Facebook