This is the time of year when my former students drop me emails letting me know where they have been accepted for the fall.
I love hearing from them, and am emboldened by how many land in their dream schools.
And I usually ask if I can share their essays with future students.
In my opinion, there’s no better way to learn how to write your own than by reading sample college application essays. (more…)
After working with thousands of students from all over the world on writing the dreaded college application essay for the last eight years, I’ve finally been able to boil down the process to three simple steps.
Yes, just three steps.
If you follow these steps, I believe you will be able to craft a college application essay that will give you an edge in the admissions game.
How?
Each step makes sure that you share information about yourself that will make your essay effective and help you stand out from the competition. (more…)
No matter where you are with writing your college application essay, you should double check that you are on the right track.
It’s way too easy to inadvertently torpedo your chances of writing an essay that gives you an edge in the admissions game. (more…)
So you are ready to start writing your Common Application Essay?
Congratulations! You have found the best source of specific tips and strategies on exactly how to brainstorm topics for each of the 5 prompts–and learn to craft a powerful college application essay using a narrative (story-telling) style.
Start by reading through the 5 prompts, which I shared below.
(The folks from the Common Application just officially announced their essay writing prompts for this coming college admissions season of 2016-17, and it’s anticlimactic news, but they will be the same as last year. The idea is you know the prompts well before they start accepting applications in August, so you can get a head start on your essays.)
You just need to write a personal statement essay that addresses one of these prompts. The prompts are mainly to inspire you to write a personal essay about yourself that helps you stand out from the crowd. (more…)
Yes, you have waited until the last minute. But don’t despair!
There’s still time to pound out two awesome essays!
If you’re working on your two college application essays for the University of California freshman application, I’ve put together a short list of my most helpful posts.
Read through them, watch the videos, and get crankin!!
Prompt 1: Describe the world you come from — for example, your family, community or school — and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations. (more…)
Students looking for ideas and inspiration on their college application essays should check out the “This I Believe” web site.
It’s an international organization set up in 2004 to help students and adults identify and express through writing personal essays the core values that guide their lives.
Thousands have been collected and published on their site and in books.
Most of these essays could easily double as college application essays, such as for the Common Application or others that ask for personal statements.
In both, you use real-life stories to share your personal philosophy. (more…)
Last week, a new student came to my home for help on his college application essays.
I asked this eager senior about his target schools. He told me Stanford was his top pick, but he was applying to most of the ivies, along with a couple UCs (Cal and UCLA).
Then he handed me a printout of his essay. It was one he had written for his English teacher at our local high school.
It was about a mission trip. To a South American country. And he wrote how he loved working with the kids, and how he realized how privileged he was, and how he hoped to make a difference in the world.
I tried not to let my reaction show. (more…)
I received an email from a student named Hannah who told me she was homeschooled, and that she had been advised to write about that for her college application essay.
Hannah said she was having “trouble thinking of anything unique or super meaningful” from her homeschooling experience.
I gave this some thought, and here’s what I would advise:
Homeschooling is something unique and special in itself.
And that’s a good thing.
But as an essay topic, it’s way too broad and most likely written about by a lot by other homeschooled students, so it risks being overdone already. (More than 3 percent of school age kids are home-schools; more than 1.5 million.) (more…)
When I first started working with students on how to write college applications essays about eight years ago now, I put together a list of Do’s and Don’ts about picking topics.
It was based on the idea that college admissions officers were seeing many of the same topics, or sensational or ill-suited topics that were not handled well.
And that those were the topics you should avoid at all cost.
But over the years, I realized there was no such thing as a bad topic. (more…)
For more than 20 years, the magazine Vanity Fair has collected provocative and memorable details from the most famous people on the planet using their version of what is called the Proust Questionnaire.
The famous French writer didn’t actually pen these questions—although he did answer the questions twice in his life—but they were used in 19th century Parisian salons to entertain the bourgeois. It was one of the first personality tests. (more…)
