Week 1: The Brag Sheet for Junior Students
Week 1: The Brag Sheet for Juniors
For LCS 11th Grade Students & Families
Helping your senior stay on track for college applications and scholarships.
🎯 Our Goal:
Use Your Brag Sheet to Build a Stronger College Profile.
This Week in LEAP
This past week, students in our Monday and Tuesday LEAP College Prep class worked on completing a Brag Sheet.
If your student is in 11th grade, this is one of the best times to start thinking seriously about college. Not because applications are due right now, and not because your student needs to have everything figured out, but because junior year gives students something seniors often wish they had more of: time.
What Is a Brag Sheet?
A Brag Sheet is a document that helps students keep track of the things they have accomplished throughout high school. It may include clubs, sports, leadership positions, volunteer service, church activities, jobs, internships, honors, awards, academic programs, special projects, summer programs, community involvement, and other meaningful experiences.
Later, this information can become extremely useful when students are completing college applications, scholarship applications, résumés, essays, and recommendation requests.
The problem is that many students wait until senior year to think about all of this. Then someone asks how many volunteer hours they completed, what year they joined a club, what they actually did in a leadership position, or what awards they earned in ninth grade. Suddenly everyone is trying to remember things that happened two or three years ago.
That is why I suggest our juniors to start earlier.
Junior Year Gives Students a Chance to See the Bigger Picture
This is where the Brag Sheet becomes especially valuable for an 11th grader. Once students write everything down, they can begin to see their high school experience on paper.
They may realize they are very involved in sports but have not had much leadership experience. Another student may have strong grades but very little service or community involvement. Someone else may want to major in engineering, nursing, business, education, technology, or another field but may not have done anything yet that helps them explore that interest.
Sometimes students discover that they have actually done much more than they realized. Other times, they see areas where they still have time to grow.
That is not a bad thing. That is one of the reasons to do this during junior year instead of waiting until senior year.
I like to think of a junior Brag Sheet almost like a mirror. It gives students a chance to look at what they have already built and ask, “What does my high school experience say about me right now?”
This Is Not About Joining Everything
I want to be very clear with both students and parents: the goal is not to sign up for every club, activity, or organization just to make a college application look impressive.
Meaningful involvement matters more.
A student who spends several years committed to a few activities and grows in responsibility or leadership can often tell a much stronger story than a student who suddenly joins ten organizations during junior year just to fill up an application.
Instead of asking, “What can I join so colleges will like me?” I would rather students ask, “What am I genuinely interested in, and how can I grow through that interest?”
That could lead to leadership. It could lead to service. It could lead to an internship, research experience, summer program, job, certification, or independent project. It may even help a student discover a future college major or career.
Junior year gives students time to be intentional.
Don’t Forget the Academic Side
As students look at their activities, leadership, service, and other experiences, they should also take a close look at the academic side of their college profile.
Junior year is a good time to ask:
What is my current GPA?
Are there classes where I need to finish stronger?
Am I challenging myself appropriately?
Are there AP courses that make sense for my strengths and future goals?
Are there subjects that connect with what I may want to study in college?
Colleges do not just look at the final GPA. They also look at the courses students chose to take and the level of challenge available to them.
Course rigor does not mean taking every AP class available just because it looks impressive. It means choosing appropriately challenging courses and showing that you are willing to stretch yourself academically while still setting yourself up to succeed.
For example, a student interested in engineering may want to pay close attention to math and science courses. A student interested in business may want to strengthen areas such as math, communication, technology, or entrepreneurship.
The goal is not to overload a student's schedule. The goal is to make thoughtful academic choices based on the opportunities available at Lanham Christian School.
Just like the activity side of the Brag Sheet, this is not about comparing your student to someone else.
It is about asking:
“Am I making the most of the academic opportunities available to me?”
That wording is better for your audience because it keeps the advice grounded in what your students can actually take.
Leadership Does Not Always Mean President
Students also need to understand that leadership does not always mean being president of something.
Leadership can mean organizing an event, tutoring younger students, leading an activity at church, mentoring another student, helping coordinate volunteers, managing a project, training someone at work, helping run a fundraiser, or stepping up to solve a problem.
Sometimes students are already demonstrating leadership and simply do not recognize it because they do not have an official title.
Responsibility, initiative, and impact matter too.
Do Not Forget What Happens Outside of School
Some of the most meaningful things students do may never appear on a school activity list.
Does your student work a part-time job? Help with a family business? Volunteer at church? Care for younger siblings? Help grandparents or relatives? Create content? Run a small business? Repair computers? Babysit? Coach younger children? Participate in community organizations?
Those experiences can show responsibility, communication skills, problem solving, commitment, maturity, and leadership.
They are worth documenting.
Sometimes students assume that only school-sponsored activities count. That is not true. Their experiences outside of school can also help tell the story of who they are.
Parents: Help Them Remember, but Let Them Own the Process
Parents can be very helpful during this process because we remember things our children may have forgotten.
You might remember an award from ninth grade, a summer program, a volunteer event, a church activity, or something your student accomplished that they barely think about anymore.
Help them remember those things, but allow the student to do the thinking and writing.
This will eventually become part of their story, and they need to be able to talk about their own experiences in their own words.
Start Keeping the Details Now
Do not just write, “Volunteered at church.”
Start keeping the details.
Write down the name of the organization, the dates your student participated, what they did, approximately how many hours they served, whether they had any leadership responsibilities, and what they accomplished.
Those details become much harder to remember later.
Trust me, when senior year arrives and your student is working on an application or scholarship late at night, you will be glad this information is already organized.
Start Thinking About Recommendations Too
Junior year is also a good time for students to begin thinking about the teachers, coaches, counselors, employers, pastors, and other adults who know them well.
Strong recommendation letters usually come from people who have actually seen a student's character, work ethic, growth, leadership, academic ability, or commitment.
That relationship should not begin the week a recommendation letter is due.
Students should participate in class, ask questions, be dependable, communicate, and allow teachers and other adults to get to know them over time.
When senior year comes, you do not want your student's first meaningful conversation with a teacher to be, “Can you write me a recommendation letter?”
Connect Activities With Possible Career Interests
Your junior does not need to know exactly what career they want. Many adults are still figuring that out.
But junior year is a great time to explore.
If your student is interested in healthcare, encourage them to look for opportunities connected to healthcare. If they are interested in business, engineering, law, education, technology, communications, or another field, help them find ways to learn more about that area.
That might mean attending a workshop, visiting a college program, applying for an internship, participating in a summer program, volunteering, attending a career fair, completing a certification, or working on an independent project.
Exploring now can help students make better decisions later about majors, colleges, and careers.
Parents, Senior Year Is Closer Than It Looks
I have been on the parent side of this process twice, and one thing I have learned is that preparation makes a difference.
By senior year, students may be juggling college applications, essays, recommendation letters, transcripts, scholarships, financial aid, college visits, testing, application fees, and admissions decisions.
Anything we can organize during junior year can make that season easier.
The Brag Sheet is one of those things.
Start it now. Look at what your student has already accomplished. Celebrate those things. Then look at where they may want to grow.
Maybe that is leadership. Maybe it is service. Maybe it is career exploration. Maybe it is finding one activity they truly care about and becoming more involved.
There is still time.
One Final Piece of Advice From a Parent
Do not let this process become a competition with another family's child.
Every student's story is different.
Your student's goal is not to look exactly like someone else. The goal is to help them become a strong, responsible, well-rounded young person who has explored their interests, contributed to their community, developed their abilities, and made good use of the opportunities available to them.
Colleges are not simply looking at a long list of activities. They are trying to understand the person behind the application.
Junior year gives your student time to continue developing that person.
So start the Brag Sheet now. Use it to celebrate what they have already accomplished. Use it to see what may be missing. Then use the rest of junior year wisely.
When senior year arrives, the goal is for your student to be able to say:
“I didn't wait until the last minute. I was preparing all along.”
📥 This Week's Student Resource
LCS Brag Sheet Template
Use this template to help your senior organize accomplishments, activities, leadership, service, goals, and other information that may be useful for college applications, scholarships, and recommendation letters.
Click Here to View the Example with the explanation
Click Here To Download The Brag Sheet
How to Make Your Own Copy
The LCS Brag Sheet is a master template. Please do not request editing access to the original.
Click the button above.
When the Google Doc opens, click File.
Click Make a copy.
Rename it with your student’s name, for example:
Jordan Smith – LCS Brag SheetSave it to your Google Drive.
Complete and edit your own copy.
If you see “View Only,” that is okay. You do not need permission to edit the original. Just use File → Make a copy.
Coming Next
Week 2: Building Your College Resume
This week, students will begin building a college resume that highlights their academics, activities, leadership, service, work experience, awards, and skills. A strong student resume can become a useful tool for college applications, scholarships, internships, recommendation requests, and other future opportunities.
For juniors, this will also be a chance to look at what is already strong on their resume and identify areas they may want to continue building before senior year.
