Q&A with a General Category Runner-Up Winner

Sierra Allen is the Sterling Scholar Northeast region runner-up in the General category. She will graduate this May from Grantsville High School as the salutatorian with a 3.99 GPA and got a 32 on the ACT. After high school, she plans on serving an LDS Church mission before attending Utah State University. Having worked on her school yearbook all four years, and this year as senior editor, she has an interesting perspective on creating a Sterling Scholar portfolio. P.S. Sierra is also my daughter. :-)

Why did you want to do Sterling Scholar?

I like being the best at everything, so I wasn’t going to let someone else be what I wanted to be. It’s prestigious, a lot of good kids all over the state compete for it. You get to prove yourself against everyone else.

When did you start thinking Sterling Scholar?

At least my freshman year. I saw it in the Deseret News and I just wanted to do that. I knew I could do it. Maybe not really overconfident, but I knew I wanted it so I worked hard.

What did you do in those years leading up to your senior year?

Be involved. If an opportunity came up, I said yes. I went the extra mile in things.

How did you choose your category?

I thought General was the best, so I always wanted the best.

What advice would you give a younger student?

You need to be involved in more than school. Those are open for everyone. I did Range Camp, Rotary, and Fiji service trip. Those aren’t available to everyone. You have to find them and do it.

Find what you’re passionate in. There’s always Google and the Internet.

How did you prepare your portfolio?

I wrote an outline, a right and left hand side, so I knew exactly what was going to be on each page. I divided it into academics, leadership and citizenship. I filled in each page from the outline.

I started on the book, dragging pictures in and writing copy. I drew the layouts first in a notebook, then transferred it over.

I looked at a couple of other portfolios, one of which was region runner-up. I also looked through magazines and college mailings, looking at graphic elements.

Do you have design recommendations?

Don’t make it look like a scrapbook, cute and full of little things that, in my opinion, don’t make portfolios look as professional. It’s hard to read when you have a bunch of cute little boxes all over the page. It needs to be more business-like; this shows a certain maturity.

In Yearbook, we always have a headline, so you know what the page is about. You have a dominant photo, a body copy (main paragraph), smaller photos and captions. You want to keep things simple and easy to understand and navigate instead of, here’s a body copy that continues here and here, jumping around, and it’s not clear.

Keep things simple and clean. Even if content is good, if there’s something about style that is distracting and turns you off, you’ll have a weird feeling about reading it. It’s better to be understated than off-the-wall.

How about copy?

Concentrate on the different experiences you did that made you feel. Introduce what you did, what time period you did it in. What exactly it was. Explain it well enough that someone that doesn’t know what you did will understand it.

Focus on feelings and lessons, more engaging and personable than just listing achievements. It shows going in depth, takes more thinking. It’s easy to list off accomplishments. It takes more effort to put your feelings and thoughts, but it’ll pay off.

I had a really hard time writing copy in Publisher because I was worried about layout, so I started writing paragraphs in Word and copied it onto Publisher. That helped a ton.

Fonts are a big deal. You want clean, simple fonts. Don’t go overboard with cute calligraphy things. You want to attract them through content instead of a distracting design and empty content.

Do you have suggestions for the interview?

Beforehand, picture yourself the happiest you’ve been, and do it before you go. I always feel my best when I’m serving. I was making friendship bracelets for kids in Africa. It put me in the frame of mind that I was happiest, because people always think they have to do something special that day. So they get keyed up. Just make it like your normal day.

When you go into interviews, be comfortable. Everyone has different styles. Just be yourself. Don’t be concerned about how you think you should sound like. If they can’t accept that, it’s not your problem anymore.

It’ll be fun if you make it fun. Think of it as a conversation, of all the cool things you’ve done. Not to brag about them, but to show what you’ve done. The judges are there and interested, want to know about what you’re interested. Get excited about what you love.

Lots of people get intimidated by the judges, but if you want to be super-good, act super-good. I’m going into a meeting, I’m not begging for their help. It’s a business partnership. You’re trying to tell them you’re top, don’t act or think like you’re inferior to them.

I had practiced questions on the way up with a friend, but the judges didn’t ask any of them. They asked about things in my portfolio. There’s not really a good way to prepare. Feel comfortable beforehand, and passionate about things in your portfolio. No matter what they ask, you’ll be ready with your answer.

Any other advice?

It’s hard to give a formula for Sterling Scholar. It’s almost like an attitude. What helped me, is, I’m ambitious, driven and confident. Those traits carry into your school work. Then into your interview. If you say, “Look, I’m good.” You can have a high test score, but if you’re not confident, it won’t help.

It’s really about doing and going the extra mile. If you think, maybe I should do that...the difference between winners and those who don’t, the winners did what you wanted to but didn’t do. You might say, “I don’t have time,” or, “I had a late night last night.” Going to one conference can lead to more doors opening up. One thing I was involved in kept branching off.

Check out Sierra's winning portfolio HERE.