The word “portfolio” is used for two different things. The first is the full record of what you have done: grades, awards, activities and projects. Every applicant has one, whether or not it is written down. The second is a creative portfolio, a selection of your own work that art, design, architecture and film courses ask for. This guide covers both.
What to include
- Grades: school reports and transcripts for the last three or four years.
- Test results: admissions tests and language certificates.
- Awards and competitions, with the level (school, national, international) and the year.
- Activities: clubs, sport, music, debating, student council, with your role and how long you took part.
- Projects and research: what you built, wrote or investigated, and what came of it.
- Work and volunteering, including informal work and responsibilities at home.
- Courses you completed outside school, and the languages you speak.
Include the things you consider small. A reader cannot give you credit for something that is not there, and what looks ordinary to you often shows commitment to someone else.
How to describe each item
Three facts make an entry useful: what you did, for how long, and what resulted. “Member of the robotics club” says little. “Robotics club for three years; built the drive system for the team that reached the national final” says a great deal, and it takes one line.
Keep to what is true and what you can show. Admissions officers read thousands of applications and notice inflated claims quickly.
Keep the evidence
Save the document behind each entry: the certificate, the report, the letter, a link to the project. Scan paper documents or photograph them clearly. Some universities ask for proof, sometimes with a certified translation, and finding a certificate from three years ago takes longer than you expect.
If you need a creative portfolio
- Read each university’s brief first. The number of pieces, the format and the deadline differ from one course to the next.
- Choose your strongest work over your most recent, and fewer good pieces over many average ones.
- Show how you think: sketches, tests and development sit well beside finished pieces.
- Submit only your own work, and say clearly what your part was in anything made with others.
- Photograph or export everything carefully. Poor reproduction hides good work.
Keep it current
Add to your portfolio as things happen, not in the week before a deadline. Ten minutes after each result, competition or project is enough, and nothing gets forgotten.
Where Corinia fits
In Corinia you upload your documents as they are, whether a PDF, a Word file or a photo. It organises them into one profile, which you review and correct. That profile is what your matches and your plan are built on, so the fuller it is, the more accurate they are.