Last weekend I decided to extend my personal Friday cubical dance party into the weekend by volunteering at a local high school dance. It was so great to see students releasing their pent up energy into the rhythm of the night. Hands in the air, shouting the lyrics to every verse, laughing and showing off their moves — they were in their element.
People (rightfully) laugh at my "Ellen-esque" 
dance parties at work. For me it takes the edge off the corporate work environment and releases a bit of my anxiety. As a student, I think these casual high school dances offer the same type of thing — a pressure release where you can go out with friends and dance off the stress of being in school.
In high school (and life in general) we spend a lot of time working on (and worrying about) our image and making sure we look good on paper. For high school students, it's SAT scores, grade point averages and the right combination of club memberships, student government experience and being on a varsity sports team. In "the real world," it's your job title, degrees of education, performance reviews, community involvement, hobbies and some type of luxury fluff like season tickets or country club memberships.
But we are so much more than just our MySpace profiles. As they say in Transformers , we are all "more than meets the eye." This is because our personalities can't be bottled and branded. We are individuals. We are human. We are interesting. We all have our own story to tell.
When you are writing your college entrance essays and interviewing for scholarships, remember to show who you really are, on and off paper. I once won a college scholarship over several of my classmates who were way more qualified (on paper) than I was. No joke, there was the valedictorian, the student body president, the volunteer wiz-kid, and me — the girl who scored a lousy 970 on her SATs. I was awarded the scholarship because I aced the interview by being myself. (BTW, if you are looking for scholarships, be sure you check out this online search engine to help you.)
This is not to say the stuff on paper doesn't count — it definitely does. (I had to work hard to make up for my horrible SAT performance.) But equally important is your character and expressing the goodness that can't be communicated on paper.
Find your "ness" and let it shine.
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