Revenge of a Tortured English Professor

If you have time, this essay (How to Say Nothing in 500 Words) is packed with invaluable advice that will help you make your college essay sing–and NOT bore those college admissions folks. An English professor wrote it in the 1960s after reading probably a...

Forget the 5-paragraph Essay

  It’s time to let go of the 5-paragraph essay format that most English teachers have pounded into your DNA by now. College admissions essays are very different from the formal academic essays you wrote in high school. How? Well, most are called...

Don’t look down!

(for this to make sense, you probably need to read the previous post) Once you get the idea of how this Ladder works, now find some sample college admissions essays that you like. See if the writer shifts back and forth between the specific and the abstract. (Just jot...