College applications frequently ask students to make lists. List your activities. List your honors or awards. List your current courses. And at Collegewise, we’ve always taught our students one simple but powerful technique in the art of application presentation—list the most important, impressive, or meaningful thing first. The second and third items should follow that same methodology. When you run out of space or items, you’ll know that you’ve shared what was most worth sharing.

Our counseling ranks are full of former admissions officers who know firsthand that the real human beings reading the applications are too inundated to interpret or remember long lists. Lead with what’s most important. Long lists aren’t impressive—short lists with impressive items are.

Yesterday, Meredith in our Columbus, Ohio, office shared this NPR story, stating that economists on an email listserv were nearly 30 percent more likely to cite a paper that appeared first in a list of papers.