Crafting your perfect portfolio

In the competitive world of university admissions, your portfolio can be what separates you from the rest of the applicants. It's a great way to showcase your skills and passions while also maintaining your focus on your major. You might think that it's just for art students, but it could be beneficial for all majors, including STEM. In this guide, we'll walk you through some essential steps to help create a compelling portfolio that would impress your admissions committees.

Let’s take a look at some of the crucial steps in creating a portfolio:
The first objectives you’re always going to keep in mind are your goals and your audience. Take a moment to think about what you want to achieve and who you’re directing your portfolio towards. Your portfolio must demonstrate why you’re the best fit for a certain program while exploring your creativity and personal interests.

Make sure to showcase your best work! Your portfolio should be a collection of your most impressive samples including any projects, assignments, or extracurricular activities that demonstrate a more well-rounded version of yourself. Sometimes we don’t get to fit in everything within our personal statement and having a portfolio is a great way to demonstrate your skills and creativity. It can be anything from a painting, coding project, research paper, or a video demonstrating your musical talents! Each piece of work has to have a title and description explaining your creative process and can further demonstrate your leadership skills or even your problem-solving skills.

Many of our current students at UniHawk ask us if they can submit their achievements from before the 9th grade. A portfolio is truly the ideal way to showcase all your hard work; especially those we can't fit into the rest of your application.

It’s also important to keep in mind that you should not put down every single achievement you can think of. Your portfolio must stay organized and have a clear design. Structure your portfolio cohesively and caption all of your work with relevant context. You can have your portfolio as a website and save it as a PDF as well, having multiple platforms would make it a lot easier during application season.

Show your personality, not just your work. Universities already have all your grades, but your portfolio can be an extension or an aid to your personal statement. Share some of your experiences or influences that have shaped you as a person and influenced your academic journey.

One of the most recommended tasks is to keep your portfolio updated. Regularly add more to your portfolio with new projects, achievements, or experiences. Share your portfolio with family, friends, teachers, and everyone around you! Ask them for feedback and refine it whenever you can! You can continue to use this portfolio throughout university and when you’re applying for jobs after graduation as well.

A well-crafted portfolio can be a lot of work, let UniHawk be your partner in creating one that reflects your unique talents and potential! Click here to get started.

By: Sam Rajesh, Admissions Counselor