by j9robinson | May 11, 2015
I’m always on the lookout for new voices in the college admissions industry who try to help students and parents and all of us keep a balanced and sane perspective on the frenzied quest for the perfect college. Kristin White, an educational consultant who...
by j9robinson | Apr 1, 2015
How to Answer Prompt 4 for the Common App for your College Application Essay Prompt 4: Describe a problem you’ve solved or a problem you’d like to solve. It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma—anything that is...
by j9robinson | Nov 8, 2014
How to Focus Your College Application Essay! I love all the comments students make about my posts. The most common ones ask about topics for the Common App or other core college application essays, including the University of California prompts. Students want to know...
by j9robinson | Mar 15, 2014
One of my favorite student-run blogs on college admissions, The Prospect, featured this interview with me last week. I thought the writer, Oriana Halverson, did a terrific job, and flushed out some helpful information: Essay Hell’s Janine Robinson: Everything...
by j9robinson | Feb 25, 2014
The Common Application folks announced a couple weeks ago that they will be keeping the same essay prompts for this college application season. If you use the Common App to apply to colleges this fall, you will have five prompts (or questions) to respond to with your...
by j9robinson | Sep 17, 2013
A student who I will call Ryan arrived for his tutoring session yesterday, and showed me what he had written for his English class. His essay started with how he worked with Habit for Humanity and a trip he took to work with Native Americans. Oh no. Not the old...
by j9robinson | Aug 29, 2013
Maybe I’m just grumpy because it’s 90+ degrees in my garage office and I tweaked my back in yoga last week (while bowing and saying “Namaste” at the very end. really.) But I just received an email from a desperate parent that really sent me. It...
by j9robinson | Jul 26, 2013
Insider Writing Tips From a School That Knows Creative Writing When I read this post by an admissions officer at Tufts University named Lee Coffin (who has been dubbed “Hip Dean”) on word limits for Common App essays, I discovered he also included some...
by j9robinson | Jul 22, 2013
At our local public high school in Laguna Beach, the English teachers assign juniors to write college application essays at the end of the year. It’s a great idea. For many students, this may be the only time they get any guidance on how to write these essays....
by j9robinson | Jun 15, 2013
College Application Essays Hot Writing Tips from The Other Side! If you haven’t noticed, I have a lot of opinions about what makes a great college application essay. But who am I? I’ve never been an admissions officer, so how do I know what they...
