Cultural Backgrounds Fuel Standout College App Essays

international students

 

Everyone Has a Cultural Background

Yours CouldĀ Make an Awesome
College App Essay Topic!

I love working with students from all over the world.

I’m always surprised, however, how many of these students overlook their rich backgrounds when brainstorming topics for their college application essays.

There have been several reasons for this.

Many international students seem to believe that colleges wouldn’t be interested in their country of birth, and the related customs, food, traditions, etc.

These same students also believe they need to appear “Americanized” in order to be attractive to their target schools in the U.S.

They are wrong and wrong. (more…)

You Are Not Alone

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Started 9-28-2013: Click the Map for Details

 

I gave away 100 copies of my ebook guide last week. (If you missed the giveaway, I’m planning on doing another in October.) Even though I’veĀ always had visitors from all over the world, I was overwhelmed by the enthusiastic students from so many countries. And they all shared one thing in common–they wanted out of Essay Hell!

I haven’t crunched the numbers, but I would guess only about 30 percent were from the United States. Some were from large public schools in New York, California, Virginia, Ohia, Utah, Connecticut, Wisconsin, etc. Others were from parochial schools and specialty (charter, magnet, Montessori, all girls, etc.) schools. Two were home schooled.

I was so impressed by the variety of countries. My favorite part was hearing all their unusual, distinguished names and home countries. Here’s just a sampling:

Bernice from Ghana.
Aawaz from Nepal.
Innocent from Kenya.
Ahn from Vietnam. (more…)